


Any time you're ready

by BlueMonkey



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit (2012) RPF
Genre: Feels, M/M, Roleplay, blurring the lines, fucked up relations, real people fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 05:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMonkey/pseuds/BlueMonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aidan's got a thing for Thorin. Richard doesn't know how to handle it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Richard

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a one-shot. It really was. Thanks to Thornyhedge for putting this idea in my head. Except then the idea grew and grew and well, there you go.

He doesn't pay attention for a moment, and the sword falls from his hand.

Richard returns to the present. He blinks, looks down at the sword, then back up. Everybody stares at him; some less than others, admittedly, because at least there are some people here that don't actually burst into broad grins at the slightest prompt and know how to do their job, which means they keep a straight face and continue. But everyone pays him attention when he doesn't do the same. And he should be professional about this, damn it; he should just continue, if only to give post-production some decent extra material aside from his slip up. He's supposed to be one of those people who know how to do their job. Instead he probably looks as sheepish right now as he feels.

"Cut!" Jackson calls from the sideline.

Richard lets go of the breath he didn't know he was holding. He sits down on a branch and picks up the prop sword. Thank god it's not damaged; he can't have that too right now. One of the guys on the side immediately runs over to hand him a bottle of water, and he's thankful of that. The guy waits until he screws the cap back on after he's taken a sip and hands it back, and he disappears right after. Around him, the psychedelic trip that's the Mirkwood set rustles and bustles to prepare for the retake. He stretches his legs.

Focus, he tells himself. You can do this.

It's not like it's a difficult scene. They're not down to the spiders and the messy cobwebs yet; it's mostly getting footage from different angles of them proceeding down the main road, which means he only has to walk and say a few lines here and there. It should be a piece of cake.

Except then they get to the part where the party comes to a halt in front of the enchanted river - which looks more like a bog of chemical waste in Richard's mind than it looks enchanted - and so far he's fucked up that scene four separate times. He's glad for the one time Dean tripped into river and killed his winning streak, because he's sure he would never live it down otherwise.

First time around, he forgot his lines. That wasn't so bad; it happens to everyone once in a while. Then the second time he simply zoned out. Peter had to snap his fingers in front of his eyes for him to blink out of it; it's been the worst and most embarrassing moment of the month so far. Compared to that disastrous second one, the third time wasn't so bad.

The worst part is that he feels that it's his fault, while it isn't. It really isn't.

They get back into position and wait for the familiar call. Richard tells himself that this time, he'll get it down. He now knows when to expect it, and it won't happen to him again. He's going to make very sure it won't happen again.

So he's really not prepared when they're still walking down the set road, not nearly at the spot where they stop and talk, and he inspects the place in front of the camera as if he hasn't just spent the last three hours doing the same thing and he memorises every nook and every cranny by now, knows every blotch of fluorescent paint. Aidan falls in line with him and - because the little fucker knows exactly when the camera's not on him - brushes a not-so-accidental hand against his flank, all the while throwing him what can only be described as a deeply smouldering look.

Thorin stumbles unceremoniously over an uprooted tree and the take abruptly ends there.

He officially hates himself.

"Jesus Christ, Rich," Stephen walks up to him, dragging the weight of his body suit around like he's done so all his life, " 's the matter with ye? Feeling all right? Are ye hurt?"

That's two questions too many, Richard thinks, while he pulls himself up and wipes some sand off the fur of his coat. Only the first one is valid, except that it also happens to be the question Richard is least eager to answer. "Yeah," he shakes his head, "I'm fine." To prove his point, he moves his neck left and right as if he's a boxer buffing himself up for a big game. He's not actually cracking his neck - he hates that. "Again."

"Are you sure?" Dean places a hand on his shoulder. "You've been out of it all day, Rich. I'm sure it's none of our business, but if there's something we can do? You know, get your mind off things."

The problem is, he thinks sourly, that he can't do a thing properly around here for as long as Aidan continues on what he's sure must be flirting of some sort. That's not exactly something he can tell the men. It would sound rather petty, he thinks. On top of that he's got no trouble with Aidan as a person. In fact, he's usually great to work with, and he always cheers things up - unless he's in a sour mood himself, and in that case, it's really better to run fast and make sure to get the hell out of his way than to try. But those moments are rare. It's just that Richard doesn't understand where the sudden attention is coming from.

So Richard blinks when Aidan suddenly pops up in the little circle that's begun to take shape around him and pretends he's equally worried. Because that's just unfair. He frowns. This time. This time he'll do it right. This time he'll be prepared, he'll ignore Aidan completely and give them a bloody good performance, because that's what he's paid to do. Let it be known that Richard takes his work serious.

And when the day's done he'll talk to him about it.

 

*********

 

Naturally, all of his good intentions aside, Richard doesn't talk to Aidan. When he's finally off the set and out of prosthetics - which takes longer than usual because for obvious reasons the Mirkwood is certainly not the makeup department's favourite setting - the whole thing seems trivial already. Aidan passes him by and says goodnight casually before strolling off, and he just can't bring it up. He tells himself the man's probably had a bad day and needed some distraction. Richard backs that theory up by assuming that come next morning, Aidan will probably give him an awkward apology and they'll continue like nothing ever happened.

It's typically him when he sits down with a cup of tea in his trailer later that night, absently watching some show that's not funny, and realises that in his head, he's already fully justified Aidan's behaviour for him.

Well, as long as it doesn't happen again, he can live with that.

*****

A week passes without trouble. Richard works hard to make up for the river shoot. He is spot on in almost any take, and when something happens that has the others laughing, he's not laughing with them, not wholeheartedly. He's got something to make up for; he's that focused. The crew are thankful for his dedication and good work; the other dwarves less so.

"You don't need to try so hard," Dean says one day just after lunch as he makes his way back to the set, right after he swings an arm over his shoulder, "Don't think we haven't noticed. Nobody thinks anything of it if you make a mistake once or twice." To the world, they're Thorin and Fíli - never mind that they've just been standing in line at the buffet with plastic plates and tiny cutlery compared to the size of their hands while in full gear and that still feels a little weird, those moments when Richard is conscious about it.

Richard could pretend he doesn't know what he's talking about, but Dean's been a good friend and he usually comes up with decent advices whenever Richard asks him something. So in honour of that, he smiles and nods, "I'll think about it." It's the best he can do.

James and Martin pass them by, meddling about who is going to break it to Peter that when they're done at the Mirkwood set, they think it would be a great paintball setting and they'd really like to try that out. Not with rifles, mind you. James mutters that his team would lose if they used paintball rifles, because he can't aim for the life of him. Martin reasons that his team would be doomed too, so maybe if they both went into separate teams the odds would be equalled out. That settles it for both of them.

Richard thinks that at least some of the set artists are going to have a heart attack when they hear about that.

He watches from the side when the spiders come out. They're not spiders; they're laser pointers so that everyone knows where to look. There's a whole team on the sidelines to enable that orchestra of lights. This is where the magic of movies is made, he thinks with arms crossed.

The dwarves are webbed and caught in cocoons. Since he's not among them, he's got a few hours off. It's not worth the trouble to get out of Thorin's costume and back into the skin of Richard the actor, so he leaves it on, knowing it'll be hot under the studio lights.

Aidan, half invisible under webbing while the others prepare for the next take, catches his eye and winks at him.

Richard stiffens.

They fall into a routine. Richard watches the shooting with waning interest, though he tries to keep his head together. His eyes inadvertently slide back to Aidan whenever he's not paying attention, and Aidan catches him almost every time. The only moments he does not is when the camera rolls. Richard doesn't look at him specifically then anyway, because his curiosity mainly centres on why Aidan would be looking at him all the time - Kíli when he's in character gives him no winks or promising looks at all.

He swears it's all Aidan's fault that he keeps looking for him; the boy has a response ready for him every single time.

It feels like hours, but his hourwatch tells him it's only twenty minutes. In those twenty minutes, Aidan has suggestively licked his lips with Richard's disbelieving eyes hooked on him, ran a hand through his hair with an exclamation that was supposed to be expressing fatigue but is in Richard's ears most certainly not, and looked at him for too long for him to be comfortable on countless occasions.

When it's Thorin's turn to be on screen, it takes Richard a good five minutes before he's in character and then when he does, he finds Thorin to be surprisingly bothered.

It's a good thing they're shooting a scene where he can be angry. Lee walks in, already clad in that air that Thranduil's character is all about, and Thorin practically bristles while he watches him get ready. Julie from makeup fusses over his crown. Richard's never had such a hard time controlling Thorin. The cameras are not even rolling. He's glad when they finally do.

But if there was any doubt left, any way that makes it possible for him to convince himself of the idea that it's all in his head, Aidan soon erases it. One moment between takes, he sneaks up behind Richard and whispers in his ear, "Any time you're ready."

Needless to say, the rest of the day is a disaster.


	2. Richard

Richard's tired enough when he appears on set the next morning. It's not that he usually has trouble sleeping, not with the hours he's been making and the physical strain that that tends to put on his body. But simply put, he just hasn't been able to close his eyes.

His body protests by attempting to fall asleep now, right in the middle of breakfast. His fork drops into his gravy and well, it's not like he usually appreciates mashed potatoes so early in the morning anyway, no matter how used they expect he is to it by now. He stares down at it, wondering if he should bother getting it out if he's not hungry anyway.

"Rough night?" Graham asks over a mouthful with a knowing smile.

"Something like that," is all Richard feels comfortable saying about the matter. Adam next to him fishes out the fork and hands him a new one without commenting on it. He can reach the tray without getting up from his seat, so it's no trouble for him.

It's early for all of them, and Graham doesn't catch onto the underdone that has slipped in there. He waves his plastic knife at him. "You know," he starts, "the lads are thinking of going into town tonight, since we've got the day of tomorrow. You should come. I bet it'll patch you right up."

"Unless he means the other type of rough night," Adam comments. His eyes widen, and he leans in. " _Did_  you?"

Richard blinks. He's not sure.

"Did I what?" he says in the most unknowingly confused voice he can muster up. He's an actor after all; he's not generally supposed to use it on friends, but it's convenient that he can.

Adam fills in the blanks for himself. "Oh, of course you didn't," he says. The quick deduction is a little bruising on Richard's ego, who coughs and stifles his discomfort with bread. When the younger actor notices, he quickly supplements, "Since we would have noticed."

The thing is... well, Aidan's good-looking. While it may not have crossed his mind before, because these are both his friends and his co-workers and there's this concept called his personal boundaries and he respects them very, very much, it has certainly started crossing his mind since yesterday - and too bloody frequently at that.

Richard looks over at the table where Aidan and Dean share a breakfast. Aidan catches his glance and throws him a smile with his mouth still stuffed. Despite the part where they ought to be concerned about dwarven mannerisms rubbing off on them, which seems to be a serious condition, Aidan doesn't do much more than that. He doesn't need to; Richard's already imagining him naked.

He cuts his thoughts off right there and digs in with renewed vigour. A faint heat flushes through him. He doesn't think he should get up now.

Adam and Graham stare at him blankly.

"So, Rich," Adam shakes his head to clear his stray thoughts, "I take it you'll come along then?"

His deduction is blatantly transparent - that if he's not having rough nights with someone, maybe actually getting some would do him good - and Richard avoids their eyes with embarrassment for a good minute. Here he thought Adam was one of the very few people here he could trust not to think of messed up things all the time. It looks like he'll have to reconsider, even if Adam himself throws him the most genuinely concerned look and it's hard to ever get upset at him.

*********

 

When he's Thorin again, he feels good. It's as if all of the trouble that Richard has coping with the situational disaster that's Aidan simply fades into nothing as soon as the costume is on. He straightens once before he leaves makeup, looks himself over in the mirror one last time, and he feels every ounce the king he portrays.

Richard owns the set, or at least that's how he thinks he must look. He's in his element among the towering set trees that look real enough that he still wants to touch them to check if the props have not actually replaced with trees overnight, and the colourful tones of the Mirkwood have long stopped hurting his eyes and distracting him. Even the spider webs that catch on the hooks of his mail shirt on moments when he doesn't pay attention add to the authenticity.

He doesn't flounder because he doesn't allow himself to be distracted. Richard's on top of his game. Adrenaline rushes through him when he nails a particularly trying part. And it's a pity, because it's one of the last days of shooting while he would have liked to drag out this feeling a while longer. That night out, he thinks, it's going to be great.

Aidan moves within his range several times. It's alright. He's Thorin now; he can handle the lingering looks he receives in between shoots when they're preparing or going over some things. Some of them he returns with a raised brow. Somehow when he's Thorin it doesn't bother him that much, though Richard feels curious enough as to why Aidan keeps throwing him the glances to begin with. Once when he thinks nobody watches, he slides his fingers down the shaft of one of his arrows suggestively. There's no doubt about his intent. Dean catches the action and incredulously gives Aidan a laughing shove that breaks the magic of it, before following Aidan's last look and landing on Richard, after which Dean gets awkward too and the two dwarf brothers suddenly look like two unconventionally dressed up men with spiking levels of hormones that they don't know what to do with as if they never grew out of their teen years.

Richard slips to the surface from under Thorin's mask once. Their mutual heartbeat accelerates from a minor slip in his thoughts. The evidence is visible for whoever would look at them, so Richard self-consciously sits down and wills himself to cool down.

It's an odd day all over. It's not that he outright wants Aidan, which makes the constant flirting slightly awkward as well as terribly embarrassing. But if he's honest with himself, which he'd rather not be right now, then he finds himself surprisingly not that opposed to the thought.

Well, physically, anyway.

It goes to show how right Adam may have been that morning about needing to get laid, because in all the thoughts that have sprung up since Aidan's mentioned he is waiting, not one of Richard's thoughts has so far managed putting him in a romantic light. It's all stray hands, bodies pressing up against each other and messy kisses. If he'd be very honest with himself, it makes him feel guilty as hell.

What's he even thinking? He's trying to calm down, not get worked up more. Either way it doesn't matter, because Richard is not inclined to do something about it. He pinches the bridge of his nose. The situation becomes much easier to bear when he's in character.  _Thorin_  doesn't get stuck in thoughts like  _should_  or  _should not_. Thorin would just do something about it. That's where they differ. Doing something about it scares the living daylights out of Richard.

"I think I'm getting a wool allergy," Adam idly mentions next to him. He has the uncanny ability to just be there from one moment to the next, and Richard jolts awake.

Nobody notices, least of all Adam. He tugs on a string and frowns. "They're using this dye that I think makes me itch. Or well, it's that or something else, but I really think it's the wool. Can I borrow your phone?"

"It's uh," Richard scrapes his throat, "I don't have it here."

"Oh. Right, of course not." They both remember the incident, somewhere during the first few days, where Dean forgot to leave his phone and got called in the middle of a shoot. Jokes about Mount Doom Oven Pizza Delivery and Hot-Dwarves-101 sprung up wherever he went for days. Part of that is to blame on himself though; he would have made it out okay if he hadn't stayed in character and picked up the phone with a stout "Fíli!" and had the rest of the cast in shambles. Adam shifts. "I think I really need to look it up. Do you think I should ask someone of the crew?"

Richard smiles. "I'm sure someone from lighting has a phone you could borrow."

Adam's off with a hop and a thankful smile. Richard watches him go before turning back and into himself. Thorin's far away from his current state, so he sets about rediscovering him before the next take starts.

"Hey." The second one to catch him unawares is the cause of his disarray himself. Without asking or a care for anyone else, Aidan slides next to him and puts his chin on Richard's shoulder, which puts his lips dangerously close to his ears. He probably didn't plan that, but he makes good use of the situation without hesitation. Aidan lightly blows at one of the braids.

Thorin slips away, infinitely beyond his grasp, while Richard's blood rushes to his head. His ears tingle at the breath that brushes the skin. He tries to pull himself together. The hardly sophisticated but at least composed "Hey" back does not make him proud of himself, though it could have been worse. He subtly slips his shoulder away from under Aidan's chin.

Aidan leans back and sways forth and back on the branch on stretched arms. He smiles broadly. He's gorgeous, Richard thinks. It's not the classic kind of handsome, but there's something about the sharp angles of his face and his smile that appeals to him. Richard doesn't stand a chance. To anyone who doesn't know what they're talking about, it must look like they share a moment of idle banter.

They don't though. Not when Aidan says, "I feel hot," rubs a hand down his neck, and makes it very clear to Richard that it's exactly that which he's reading into it.

"... It doesn't bother me," he says back feebly. Really, these replies he comes up with; if he wants to send Aidan a proper message, he should just do it. Except he doesn't know what that message would be. What if Richard tells him he might be interested in what Aidan's offering, even if Richard himself doesn't feel remotely comfortable about that and has no idea what to do because they're co-workers and he's never looked at him that way and now that he does, god, it has the power to ruin things. There's a good reason he doesn't do flings on set. He should tell him that.

Except he thinks he wants him. But then there's that; what if he tells him that, and Aidan is aiming higher? What if he wants a relationship out of this? Some message that would be.

Aidan gets some kind of message though. He sits back; recovers. "Pity," he says, "I would've-"

Richard quickly presses a hand over his mouth to stop what's coming. Undoubtedly it's bad. "Aid. This is not okay."

"Isn't it?" Unexpectedly, his eyes darken. Aidan flicks his tongue out; nobody sees the way Richard pulls his hand away like it's burned but, more importantly, nobody either takes notice of how Aidan has managed to curl his lips around the tip of one of Richard's fingers just prior to that.

Richard's hard right there, and oh god, this shouldn't be happening. They're in the middle of thirty-something people - worse than that, they're at work. There's cameras. Some of them could be rolling right there. And Aidan's being incredibly unlike himself. He's too flirty, and he's taking too much risk.

"What's gotten into you?" he hisses under his breath.

Aidan smiles lazily at the words like they're an inside joke. Richard understands how he reads his words at once; he's glad he doesn't pronounce them syllable by long, overhearable syllable, because the thought alone already makes him very incredibly uncomfortable. Everything is an innuendo waiting to happen with the guy. But Richard's actually serious. "Can I talk to you later?" he gathers himself, "When we're off set?"

"Before makeup?"

"Actually, maybe after makeup would be better." It'd give him a chance to clear his head and god knows he needs that.

"Before makeup," Aidan instead states.

Richard doesn't get why it's such a big deal, but he agrees if only because he wants it sorted out.

Aidan jumps off the branch and back onto set with a skip in his step like Richard's just promised him the world.

 

*********

 

They don't talk, of course.

It's becoming a bit of a rule; whenever Richard needs a moment, something always comes up. This time is no exception. His thoughts have been running wild for the last few hours, and his concentration has been rather in the gutter, if movie sets had gutters. He still doesn't know what he's going to do about it. But he really needs that talk.

It's not his fault that the opportunity passes them by, except that it is. He should have guessed that there's only so many times you can fuck up a scene before the director wants to know if you're doing alright. From one dreaded conversation he lands right into the next one. He has to repeat that he's alright several times before Peter believes him, and it's hard to get a word in sometimes. By the time they're done, Aidan is nowhere to be seen.

Which brings them right here, a pint in front of him on the bar, while he pretends not to look at Aidan and the person in question is lazily draped against Dean, grinning at something that he thinks is sinfully funny.

He's just going to do it, he thinks.

Sure, it's going to take him everything he's got, thinking he can control the man, and he already believes he's in way over his head to begin with. But he thinks he just might. He's not ready to let Aidan know that, except if he's not now, then when is he ever going to be? No, he will just have to let it happen when it does.

It's all wrong, he says to himself. His mind takes a big step back, thinks it over again. There's no way he'll be able to look anyone in the eye the next morning, if it's going to happen.

Aidan sits and laughs, and looks at him with a grin that's... casual, Richard supplies for himself. It's nothing out of the ordinary, and it definitely doesn't contain any hint of flirting. Richard feels almost disappointed. In fact the way Dean looks between the both of them, his eyes more on him than on Aidan, and tries to decide why Richard keeps looking at his friend next to him looks more like interest than anything that's coming from Aidan. Has he been reading into this all wrong?

"Bottoms up, Rich," Aidan raises his own glass, "The night's young."

And not even that is laced with promise.

Richard needs a cold shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering about the same title for chapter one and two; I've decided to take on the Game of Thrones method, which means I'll be writing several chapters from different perspectives. Just to give you a heads-up. So look forward to Aidan's perspective next chapter.


	3. Aidan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard figures some things out.

Aidan bounces to a stop on front of Richard.

"You said you wanted to talk?"

It's early morning and still dark outside, even though they're already geared up in costume. Aidan hugs his clothes a little closer to his skin. Winter's almost there, so he's thankful for the many layers of fur-lined leather that protect him from the cold for as long as he is Kíli. Nowadays he tends to wear them until someone bothers him to change. Usually that's someone from makeup. Under set lights the heat becomes almost unbearable, but right now he's glad.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks at Richard with casual interest. He tries to, anyway. Aidan has been aiming for that 'we need to talk'-moment for long enough. His methods may perhaps not always have been clean, but at least he gets to reap the results before they finish the Mirkwood scenes and shooting will be a wrap. So maybe he's been throwing his hints around very blatantly lately. He just doesn't want to miss his chance, and time is unfortunately running out on him.

Richard doesn't look pleased though.

"Could we do that another time?" he asks, and moves to walk past him. He looks almost angry at the intrusion, and he's never been so curt with Aidan, which takes him slightly aback. Richard's never like this.

They've not seen each other since that moment Richard excused himself too awkwardly early at the bar - it may have been around eleven when Aidan lost him and Dean informed him that Richard had been gone for a good twenty minutes already. Somehow, and he doesn't know why, that makes him feel guilty - like it's his fault he left. The rest of the night must have been good enough, judging from the massive hangover he's had all throughout Sunday, but he can't remember much of it so his memory has to be based on the stories of thirds. It's not farfetched to think Richard's current mood may have been his doing somehow.

Aidan sidesteps to catch him before he can leave. Richard's not yet in character, but he's certainly already picking up Thorin's mannerism, because he wouldn't have pushed him aside so absolutely otherwise. That's good, Aidan thinks, but also slightly worrisome.

"Richard, come on," he tries, "Something bothers you. If it's about what you wanted to talk to me about, there's no one else around right now." He means to imply that he listens well and that Richard ought to try him. Though, admittedly, he has to accept that his attention span is already, completely beyond his grasp, shortening. That's what happens to him when Thorin's close. The dwarf prince does crazy things that make no sense to him. He probably shouldn't tell Richard that. Aidan pulls himself together. Richard wanted to talk. Or Thorin wanted to. He doesn't know. Yet he'll be damned if he doesn't find out.

Obscured by palling daylight, he sees Richard hesitate before pressing on. Aidan knows enough from that minor slip; he's got a chance. Good. He takes it by blocking his path once again and fully stops him from trying again - Richard looks like he's in the right mood to be insistent - by grabbing his shoulders. It's not a move Aidan would generally make. Then again, he usually doesn't care so greatly about talking to someone.

"What's the deal with you?" Richard blurts out all of a sudden, like Aidan's just shredded every ounce of his self-control and then stepped on it. He doesn't wait for Aidan to respond. "First you lead me on, then you ignore me completely? You can't treat people like that."

More specifically, Aidan thinks, _he_ can't treat Richard like that. And he'd be right. "I didn't lead you on," he says quieter - for the other man's sake rather than his own, "well, I didn't intend to." He frowns then. "I didn't avoid you either. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"You didn't..." Richard looks rather peeved at that, "No. It wasn't about you ignoring me. That happened later."

"Then," Aidan deducts, the thought sending an electric current reeling through his body, "You wanted to talk to me about," he uses Richard's words here, because they're safer than any words he would otherwise give them and the matter's too delicate, "leading you on." He doesn't like the tone of those words, but they're out now. Aidan bites his lip. If his assumption proves right, then that means the moment is important.

Richard nods awkwardly; an unbecoming giddiness fills Aidan. He tries to keep it down, since it's obvious that the subject flusters Richard. Aidan's quite alright with him being flustered. "What was that, Aid?" Richard asks, hurt, "Fun and games?"

What? "No!" Richard's got it all wrong; it's nothing like that! "Of course it wasn't." But then, there's only one thing to say, and he says it awkwardly, "It's not leading someone on if it's genuine, isn't it?"

Aidan watches Richard expectantly. He's certainly quieted him now.

"It's just," he slowly picks up what he's meant to say all along, because he sees hope blossoming in those eyes and it's not Thorin, "It's genuine, but it's not, how do I put this? It's not you." Wow, and doesn't that make him sound like a total asshole? He cringes inside. The word's out there though. All he needs to do is wait for that inevitable question in return.

Richard takes a deep breath. Yep. Definitely hurt him there, Aidan reprimands himself. Shit. He tried to be subtle about it.

"Then who?"

He might as well look the part if he feels guilt all of a sudden. They're soon losing their cover as the morning light creeps up on them; Aidan squints when he finds himself looking straight into the rising sun. He moves into Richard's shadow, which gives him a few minutes respite. "Thorin," he whispers.

There you go. It wasn't that hard.

He should be relieved. It's just, Richard doesn't look remotely like he understands. He grasps for words. "Thorin?" he asks, confused, " _I'm_ Thorin, Aid."

"You're not though, now are you?" Aidan fidgets. Honestly, e doesn't think he's seen this coming; he's been so obvious and straightforward that it just had to happen in a flurry, too. Either Richard tells him to get the fuck away from him - or rather, Thorin would, because Rich is too good for that - or he'd kiss him demandingly. Aidan's definitely been pushing the buttons. He's been blunt. So when they're not having at each other, one way or another, it all feels like it's gone haywire. Richard wasn't even supposed to get into the picture, even if that's been unavoidable from the start; he also wasn't supposed to look as hurt as he does now.

But Aidan can't help that he's right about one thing. Richard and Thorin, they're entirely different people, all wrapped up into one package. It would have been great if they were separate. But they're not.

"Think about it," he tries.

Richard's already edging back. He doesn't stumble, because he's too composed and perfect for that, but it would make Aidan feel so much better if he would. He likes the imperfections that make up Thorin. He likes the edge and the pride, the rawness of his presence, and it attracts him in ways Richard and his perfect manners can't. Nonetheless, he's a good friend, and he can't blame him now for being such a good guy.

"I should go," Richard points over his shoulder like he's not been making his way out since Aidan first cornered him. He turns, awkwardly. Aidan lets him.

Shit, he says to himself again.

He feels like he's just confessed to Richard and gotten turned down.

 

*********

 

It's a hectic day. They're hardly given the chance to catch a breath, because they're behind on schedule and it's not like a premiere already communicated with the rest of the globe is going to be postponed just because of something small like having to work overtime. That puts them at eight in the evening, some of them barely still standing up in the heat of the set lights. The key grip's arranged a replacement because days like these really take their toll, and even Peter - whose boundless motivation tends to make him impervious to all things mundane like eating and sleeping - looks tired. The rest of them make do with Gatorade and dextrose supplements.

Dean flocks around him whenever the camera stops rolling, and Aidan's glad for that. He doesn't know how to act around Richard, really. Thorin's taken over and he tends to be a handful when that happens at the best of days; now he's simply insufferable. Between takes, Richard's cold and distant. His anger flares up several times and he's screwed up takes because he's too into it. Normally that shouldn't be a problem; but this part requires him to be calm, and Thorin's anything but. They all say that it's because of the long hours. But then Thorin's eyes - they're decidedly not Richard's - catch Aidan's and Aidan knows that he's responsible.

So he tries to back off for the rest of the day. Tries to and thinks he's doing a decent job at it; that is, until that moment where Dean - who is tired and lies down between takes for a minute, and Aidan offers him his lap for a pillow - gets the load of it.

"What are you doing?" Thorin stands suddenly in front of them. He looks down and pays attention only to Dean, who blinks and looks around; he doesn't know what he's doing wrong, but he probably assumes it's trying to close his eyes, because he gets up at once.

"Sorry," he apologises, brushing a hand through Fíli's tangled hair, "Sleepy, 's all."

Aidan frowns. Dean's got nothing to do with this and besides, he's doing nothing offensive. He's just closing his eyes.

"So you're just going to sleep while the rest of us are working?"

Jesus. This is going all wrong.

"Sorry," Dean mutters again, though he too is starting to be testy. One more shove, Aidan thinks, that's all it'll take. He doesn't want to have that on his conscience.

"You believe you can worm your way out with a quick apology, friend?"

" _Richard_." Aidan stares at him.

Thorin fades at the name and then Richard's back. The effect is immediate. His back instantly stiffens as he looks down at both of them, and he takes a deep breath. There are no words for this. Guilt rips through his expression at once. "Oh god," he says, "Dean, I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me."

Aidan knows.

Dean, who's too good for them and who's got such a massive weak spot for Richard that Aidan practically rolls his eyes, shakes his head. "Naw, I'm good," he says, "Long days. Haven't we all been there?"

"Sorry again," Richard says. All the while, his eyes keep flitting back to Aidan. Call it curiosity or something else, but Aidan feels terrible for causing this. Richard's a proper guy. It's not hard to assume that if you confess that you're rather interested in one of his roles, and he's not interested, you at least expect him to be discreet about it. Instead, it feels like Aidan's gone and completely fucked up the last few days of shooting by telling.

Getting things off your chest should feel good, but it doesn't. It just doesn't.

When they call it a break, Aidan's the first to leave the set. He needs air and time alone. He also needs a shower and some proper food to balance out the many energizers that are still coursing through his blood stream. Caffeine no longer helps him wake up; goes to show how far gone he is, really. It'll be a great period after shooting, he thinks wryly, getting sober from that.

He's just in the process of pouring himself an orange juice - it's a good start, except he shouldn't have brushed his teeth to fresh up five minutes earlier, because the taste is acrid - when someone knocks on the door. He assumes it's probably Dean, who borrowed some DVDs a couple of days back and promised to return them before the weekend, so he takes his time walking to the door.

It's not Dean.

The orange juice spills against the refrigerator when he's forced back inside. Aidan faintly hears the door close before he's pushed back against the kitchen sink. The top digs into his back momentarily. Then he's pulled back by a dark blur and they turn. Thorin presses him into the door, his rage blinding.

Aidan's got only a second to be afraid before his lips are claimed and parted without trouble and gods, this should be illegal. There's no other way to describe how it feels; there's the pressure and friction of chapped lips, of hands that roughly hold him there, and then there's those other things; the musk of Thorin that may also be Richard's, but he doesn't care; and the way Aidan's hands itch to grip Thorin's hair and tug him down.

He's instantly hard, and instantly cupped under the glorious pressure of a flat hand - wow, Aidan thinks distantly, he thought he knew fast. Thorin doesn't smile or give any other hints that he's familiar with the blur that are his thoughts. But he knows what he's doing. His palm moves against his groin in intensely hot slow strokes, in ways that Richard never would.

"This is what you want?" he says darkly.

Aidan's still out of it, but he nods wildly.

The way they move is maddening. There's no space between them, but they fumble at belts and shirts regardless. It's a battle Aidan will lose. Thorin obliterates any room he makes for himself by pressing him further up against the door, their bodies flush against each other. He's got his shirt removed roughly - he thinks he hears it tear at one of the seams - and his jeans pool at his ankles soon after, restricting him further in his movement because his shoes are still on and he doesn't get that moment he really needs to rid himself of them. Aidan's glad Thorin at least won't give him the ability to trip.

Thorin is still in all his clothes when Aidan's down to his boxers, which should be embarrassing, but it's not. Everything's fast. It's all he can do to keep up. So when he's yanked back from the door once again, moved around, nearly falling, and suddenly finds his chest pressed down over the sink - thank god these trailer kitchens don't have sharp angles - he catches up too slowly.

When he does, the last restricting garment's down and he's wholly unprepared for the way Thorin's hand wraps around his cock next and takes away the last of his breath.

"Oh, god," he groans. Aidan finds himself pressed against the cold ribbed aluminium of the countertop. It's a trailer, so it's not a big kitchen and he braces his lower arms against the wall to protect his head. His lips nearly skim the surface and if the kitchen weren't so damaged from years of rentals, he would have seen a distorted version of himself in it. Thorin doesn't bend over his back this time, so he finds he's got some leeway; up from his hips at least.

Aidan takes that chance. He looks over his shoulder; what he sees stirs deep in the pool of his abdomen and constricts his throat. He doesn't think he's ever seen Thorin dark before, not with the way he looks now. The man looks down at where his naked arse is pressed against Thorin's clothed front, his eyes narrowed until they're almost shut. The anger's still there, as is a certain vehemence. Aidan's completely at his mercy.

Still, he has a need to say something right now, because he wants it worse.

"Fuck me, Thorin."

Thorin growls. He strengthens his grip on his hips immediately. "You don't get to command me, human."

 _Yes_ , he thinks, _yes!_ Because suddenly it's exactly like how Aidan's imagined - hoped, _fantasised_ \- it to be, and he'll be damned if it doesn't burn a path straight to his core. This is worth a hundred fights with Richard, he thinks. There will probably be a good approximation of that number when they're done here anyway, he expects. It's worth it, definitely worth it.

Bent over against the kitchen sink, he feels Thorin shift. His hand readjusts to nudge his thumb against the glans. Aidan swallows a string of curses. He can handle himself pretty well usually, but this is Thorin; the thought of him doing these things to Aidan alone is responsible for at least half of his current, heightened sensitivity.

"Beg for it," Thorin commands low against his hair.

It's embarrassing how fast he nods his head and breathes out, "Please. In me, please."

Thorin grunts in approval and shifts.

Aidan hates the feeling of rubber between them. Aside from the practical parts where they'll both suffer from the lessened friction, it diminishes the authenticity of being fucked by a dwarven prince. The picture doesn't match up. It's obviously one of those small things that are, deep down, Richard's. Then again, he knows he'll be glad for the precaution later on.

And well, Thorin does a mighty job at making him forget when his breeches fall to the floor in a loud clatter of buckles against linoleum and decides to skip preparation. He simply positions the tip against his entrance and Aidan sucks in a breath at the implications. He needs to adjust first; he also assumed that despite Thorin's anger, it would not be skipped. Suddenly, he's glad for the lubed surface of the condom. Aidan braces himself.

It's slow, and overwhelmingly tight. Thorin doesn't press all the way in; at least he's got the decency to wait, although Aidan's not sure if it' decency or simply too much for him to bear as well.

He doesn't know why, but suddenly he remembers that they didn't lock the door and that he was originally expecting Dean to drop by. Minor detail. Equally unimportant; Dean also never knocks. He doesn't want him to walk in on them and see this for a number of reasons. But, he's guilty, the danger also adds to the excitement. Thorin eases further in and he moans.

That's as far as Thorin's resolve goes. Triggered by Aidan's sound, he suddenly slams fully in. At his deepest, he wraps his inattentive hand back around Aidan's cock and strokes it. "If I'd known you would feel this good, I would have claimed you sooner," he says. Thorin's still as aggressive as when he forced Aidan back against the door, just after he opened it for him, but the admission feels rather intimate.

"Move," Aidan begs of him in return.

Thorin listens for once. His grip is unforgiving. One hand keeps his hips steady, while the other does everything within its power to make Aidan move. He's breathing open-mouthed, fogging up the countertop, and his mouth is running dry.

The trailer's not made of sturdy stuff, and a pan clatters down a cupboard.

"Harder," Aidan demands, pants. He doesn't care if the whole kitchen comes crashing down. Intoxicated as he is, nothing matters except the need for more. Thorin moves back until only the tip is in. Then he harshly forces his way back in, spilling a broken cry from Aidan's lips.

Aidan's not the only one who's losing it. Thorin's hand on him slows down and stops. It moves again from time to time, but the pace is stammering and half-hearted at best. In the end the man settles for removing his hand, earning a whimper of loss from Aidan, and lets his two hands roam over his back shortly, before they both move to his hips and grab him there.

The new traction gives Aidan everything that Thorin's got. If his skin didn't feel stretched taut and his muscles weren't so tense with build-up, his knees would undoubtedly buckle. He doesn't know how long he'll be able to keep up. His world is spinning before him, in dire need of oxygen, and his ears ring.

Just like that, he falls. It's the way Thorin hits that spot, right there, while he was already too damn close. A deep intake of breath and the way his chest arches off the sink are all that give it away. Then, Aidan's crumbling. He pushes back his hips, undulating frantically and then lazily, before it gets too much and his arms lose their strength, resting his forehead against the kitchen top while he tries to squirm away. "Fuck," he hisses, "Give me, ah, a minute."

Thorin doesn't. He may have contemplated it, but Aidan feels the way he clenches around the other's cock, and if it's hard for him already, it's probably close to unbearable for the other. Fingertips cruelly dig into his bones, Thorin thrusts inside thrice more, and then he too comes.

Aidan thought he'd be louder, but Thorin's been quiet throughout it all. His legs are pressed against the cabinet by the added weight, and he feels spilled seed stick against his thigh. Aidan takes a deep breath. Then, when he's settled, a huge grin spreads across his lips and euphoria truly kicks in.

He's just been fucked by Thorin Oakenshield.

While Aidan can't believe his luck, he feels the man in question slip out and, being very much spent, he drapes himself over the countertop, arse proudly up on display, chuckling quietly. "Oh, _man_."

By the sounds of it, Thorin's hoisting his breeches back up. He doesn't speak - Aidan doesn't mind that - but then his breath hitches and he does hear that, so he looks over his shoulder. What greets him quickly makes him turn around and try at a sense of humility.

Richard stares wide-eyed at his cock - in its currently naked state, his arousal is after all likely to be the most noticeable thing about him - then back up at his face, and falters.

"Oh god," he whispers, a hand covering his mouth, and the most painfully wrenching look of regret is etched on his face. "I'm sorry. I never... I. I should go, probably. Are you alright? God, Aidan. I'm so sorry."

And if that isn't the most unwanted he's felt after just having had mind-blowing sex, he doesn't know how it can be any worse. Aidan loses his appetite for a lot of things at once. His arms hang limply by his side.

"Can I do anything for you?," Richard rambles on. He's shaking. "Oh, Aid, I don't know what came over me. I know there's no way I'll ever be able to fix this but please, if there's anything..." He's beyond himself with guilt, but it rubs him all the wrong way. Ignoring the way he reveals more than conceals, Aidan hugs himself. Suddenly, he feels very small indeed.

"Please go," he croaks hoarsely. When Richard looks at him with pleading eyes, he can't hold back much longer. "Go, Richard. Leave me alone."

Richard hesitates. "We should...-"

"Go!"

The empty trailer that Richard leaves him in is too cold.

Aidan locks the door carefully. He isn't interested in Dean barging in for some DVDs he can't care less about now, and he certainly doesn't want him to see him like this. Then he silently breaks down.


	4. Richard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where things get complicated.

"Come on, not again!"

There are two more days of filming left. Then, there's half a day extra to cover the last parts if anything needs reshooting, or if the editors need more footage. That's all the time that's left to them because after that, post-production really can't afford to be pushed back any further. It's crucial they get it right. As of right now, that's going to be a bit of a problem.

Richard barely snaps out of it.

James is never trouble on set, but even he must feel the stress weighing down on them, because he grabs him by the shoulders and peers into his eyes with annoyance. Richard has just screwed up for the fifth time. In half an hour. "Look, we're all tired, but could you just hold on for a few more days?! We need to get this right. Come on, Rich."

It's not the fatigue though. Richard barely registers James falling out against him, and the fact that everyone's looking at them passes him by entirely, but he does register the way Aidan looks at him. And that's just his luck.

Even if Aidan continues like nothing happened between them, he seems unable to stop himself from looking. Usually that look is sad, but sometimes it's worried and sometimes it's also anger - neither are emotions Richard wants to be the cause of for anyone. That he gets them from Aidan of all people only adds to the formula that got him to this point. It gives Richard a constant reminder of the ways he's messed up.

"Sorry," he says distractedly, "I'll work harder."

"Thank you," James stretches out the syllables with tiredness in his voice, and bows. He resumes his position before gesturing to Peter to continue.

It's nigh on impossible to bring Thorin out, so all Richard does is pretend; pretend he's Thorin, pretend at the lines, and pretend, pretend, pretend. He's simply going through the motions. In his head, he can't stop thinking about the images that have been run through the projection wheel of his head a thousand times before.

Aidan, bent over the sink.

Aidan, egging him on and taking all of him gorgeously when he finally caves.

Aidan, who wants Thorin.

And then Thorin, angry, passionate Thorin, who took Aidan.

There's no space for Richard there - the exchange has been purely Aidan and Thorin - but Richard shares a body with the dwarf, so he remembers it all the same. He's had no say in it when Aidan taunted him and forced him to think on the notion of him wanting Thorin again and again, nor when he knocked on the door of that trailer and made work of it. All of that has been one angry blur. He's scared that if he gets remotely into character again, he'll do it again.

Oddly though, that's only part of what frightens him. Then there's also the thing where Thorin fucked Aidan after hints that had Richard assume that it was him he was interested in. As a result, Richard's been imagining Aidan and him. Not Thorin. _Him_. Thorin got to have him, but Richard feels like he's the one responsible for both violating the man in such a terrible way and for setting himself up for disaster in the first place; he's jealous of the other person inside his head. He wants what Thorin's having.

He wants - and he hates how it's taken him this long to figure that out because he could have stopped things - he wants Aidan.

Wants Aidan to want _him_.

It's too painful to talk about it. Whenever he looks at the man, guilt surges up. There's no way he's going to be able to open his mouth and talk rationally and well, what'd he say anyway? Aidan's made it clear he doesn't want him. So, bitterly, he knows it's within his power to stop him from having Thorin at least. But Thorin wants, and Richard wants, and neither does he want to be the jealous type to deny Aidan something he desires just because it's not with him.

So, okay, it might also have to do with the concept of Thorin's memories being Richard's memories. Self-loathing wells up again how he thinks about abusing said memories to get off only hours ago.

Dean leans an elbow on his shoulder and says, surprisingly casually, "So. Since you're not doing great, and I doubt you will get your stuff together because it's been going on for long enough already... Anything I can do to help fool the cameras?"

He asks no further questions, just smiles at him the way he does. Dean doesn't look like he cares, or perhaps he does and he doesn't show it. Richard's suddenly incredibly thankful for that.

He probably expects it to have to do with Aidan though, Richard thinks, because they're usually together and Aidan's been irritable enough throughout the day. Either way, it doesn't matter. No questions are asked, so none will have to be answered - to anyone but himself, at least.

It gives his confidence a boost to have someone care.

"Please," Richard confides, and he wonders how to put this delicately. But they're all actors, and most of them have been there one time or another. He licks his lips. "It's... Thorin, I believe. I feel like I'm not myself anymore when I give him space, and it's hard keeping him down."

Dean ponders on that. "It's a few more days," he wonders, "Why not let him free?"

And have him corner Aidan to take him again?

"You don't know what he's like, outside of work."

"We can back off for a few days if it's space you need, I'm sure," Dean shrugs. "But if you're sure. How about this? Whenever you think you can't hold on, look at me and I'll distract you. Or, worst case, I can screw up. Just, you know, once or twice. Don't ask that of me too many times. That's my job on the line there." He cringes at that thought as if to illustrate that he's not proud about what he just suggested before nodding. "Buy me a couple of beers afterwards and we're even."

Richard looks at him gratefully. "You're a life saver," he says at last.

"I do what I can."

Richard doesn't screw up for the rest of the day, and he makes a mental note to buy Dean an extra couple of rounds.

He doesn't look at Aidan though. And things have repercussions.

*********

 

The door slams open.

Richard stares up wide-eyed from the couch, a book on his lap. He's greeted by the sight of Aidan, whose expression is downright murderous - and then the sound of the door being locked. Aidan slips the key into his back pocket.

"So," he says.

Shit.

"How about you let me know, next time you decide to avoid me?"

Cornered between the table and the wall in the back of the trailer, Richard's book slips from his hand. He makes a grab for it but misses. The item is forgotten before it reaches the floor. His pulse beats wildly in his throat and resonates into to his chest. For all his composure, he feels like a trapped animal with nowhere to go. It's either fleeing, or initiating the fight. Wasn't that door closed, anyway?

"I wasn't...-" he starts.

"Don't lie to me!" Aidan smashes his palms against the table, which tips dangerously but withstands. The piece of furniture is all that stands between them; it's the only thing protecting Richard right now. It was bound to happen one day, he thinks, but right now he doesn't feel ready to deal with this mess at all. "You started it, Richard. You! Don't you look at me like that!"

"Like what?!" he says back, and his voice is more forceful. That's not good.

Aidan violently points at him. "Like that! Like you're fucking sorry for me. Are you?"

Richard gains the upper hand of the warring two sides in him. "Aidan, please."

"You're sorry!" Aidan laughs loudly and stilted. It's indignation and nervousness and hurt all compressed into one heart-wrenching sound. "This, this is cosmic, Rich. Let me tell you something."

"Please," Richard's aware of the thin walls - something the other seems to have forgotten entirely. He glances around in unease.

"No! Listen to me, Rich. This may come as a shock to you, but," every word from here is staccato and angry, "you did not violate me. You didn't. I asked you to fuck me as Thorin, and you did, and I fucking loved it. Did I give you any ideas that you wronged me?"

"You don't-"

"So you don't get to decide to avoid me the next day, just because you don't know what came over you, or whatever," Aidan rages on, his nostrils flaring. "You don't owe it to me to be guilty. But while we're on the subject, you could have fucking well ended last night without trampling on my dignity."

"Dignity!" Richard exclaims - and it's still distinctly Richard, despite how he feels like he's lost all control. "Who are you to tell me about dignity? You tempt me, you crawl under my skin, and you don't stop until you have me exactly the way you want! You want to tell me about dignity? Haven't you had enough from me?"

Aidan leans forward darkly and dangerously, so that their noses nearly touch. Time is momentarily suspended between them. Richard holds his breath. Aidan hisses, and it's probably not what he meant to say originally, but it slips out anyway. "Not by a long shot."

They stare at each other. Something gives way in Richard's head, like the click and slide of wafers in a lock.

Aidan launches himself on top of the table, before he's all over him. His hands clutch at his face and hair, pulling him in for a messy kiss, while he wrestles his legs off the table and onto the couch on both sides of him. Thorin immediately busies his hands trying to undo the buttons of his shirt. When he doesn't succeed, he tries tugging the shirt off over his head, before simply ripping it. Despite it being one of his favourite shirts, Aidan is nothing other than enthusiastic about it - especially when he's snagged close by his waist and their mouths seek each other out again.

The space between the table and the wall is too small to have both of them. Which is why it's pushed back, the screech of the table legs on the floor ignored in favour of the touch and taste of one another. Aidan grinds his hips down and burrows his hands in short hair, pulling Thorin's mouth against his neck. He absently notices the curtains of the window behind Thorin to be partly open, and draws them shut. His body's already shaking when he lets his hand slide down to his neck delicately, his neck arched; the two of them together are a drug.

They're not patient. When he feels he can't take waiting any longer - which is fast, because everything about Aidan screams _have me_ \- Thorin wraps Aidan's legs around his waist and pulls up. He lays the man down on the table. It's too small to bear him fully, so it just supports his back; Aidan legs are hooked and rest on the seat of the couch. Everything Thorin does is followed by a pair of hungry eyes. And god, then Thorin's upper body is pulled on top of him and his eyes are so wild, so full of desperation and need that he can't hold out. Aidan lets out a delicious cry when he attacks his neck, and shivers violently when he draws his tongue across the shell of his ear.

Then they're back to kissing again. It's like they're dying of thirst when they're not connected, because It's desperate and it feels like not touching for a moment will be the end of them. "Don't regret it this time," Aidan pleads. It's for Richard, not for Thorin, because Thorin could never, would never regret this. It's too beautiful and too addictive. He shakes his head. Not as Richard - he doesn't think Aidan would appreciate him returning right now - but despite the debauchery of it all, Thorin too has a sense of honour.

When he looks down at the creature on display beneath him, he sees his own ferocity reflected. Aidan challenges him when he moves his own hands to his belt and starts undoing it. All the while, he never leaves his eyes. It's as if he's saying, _if you don't, then I will_. Thorin finds himself transfixed by the fingers that know what they're doing.

Aidan doesn't push his jeans down, but he does move a hand inside. His eyes flutter shut and he licks his lips as his head falls back against the table. If it wasn't a challenge before, it's a challenge now. "You want me?" he breathes out.

Thorin can't stop looking. The sight awakens something deep inside him. That's why he doesn't move to replace the hand and doesn't ambition taking the jeans off. Instead he gives him space and leans down to his ear to tell him in a low voice, "Touch yourself."

And Aidan does. His hand rubs down and pulls up, and it's hard with the fabric still being in the way, but it's the most entrancing thing to Thorin. His chest rises and falls, and every touch that's bestowed upon him sends a shiver down his skin. Thorin encourages him further by kissing and nipping his earlobe - but he can't stop himself from looking when Aidan growls and pushes the jeans further down to finally properly take himself in hand.

Once he allows his hand to travel down and wrap around Aidan's hand. Aidan responds with joy and bucks his hips up. He whimpers when his hand leaves again. Thorin wants to ravage the man underneath him until he's broken of lust and sobbing. He wants all of him and leave him nothing when he's done.

Aidan's lost in a world of his own. He's completely unashamed of the things he's doing, which would strike Richard as horrendous but has Thorin mesmerised. It's when his hand leaves him and he brings it up to coat two fingers in his own saliva in what must be the hottest way he can - completely oblivious to Thorin still watching, until he flickers his eyes open and looks at him flushed with want - and he takes them south to slip one of the fingers carefully in with a sigh... That's the exact moment Thorin's interest in only watching stops.

It's perhaps not the nicest thing he does next, forcing his own index finger in along Aidan's, judging from the way his eyes snap open in surprise and minute discomfort, but hell does it feel good to move in a purposely different rhythm than Aidan's until the man's squirming and panting.

Suddenly he's too hot. Pulling back to strip off his own clothes, Thorin is estranged to find himself wearing jeans and a grey cardigan instead of layers of leather and fur.

Thankfully that fades as soon as they clothes come off.

Aidan presses a hand against his lips and chin when Thorin readies himself. He doesn't talk, not because he's nervous but because he doesn't want to break the silence, though he's aiming at something. It's like an odd little ode to Richard, Thorin thinks, when he grasps that Aidan refers to a condom.

Thorin hates the little buggers, hates them with a passion. They're unnatural little things. But, equally respectful to the man who shares his body, he grudgingly accepts.

They melt together wonderfully. It's tight at first - he likes how Aidan responds to that and how his cock presses forlornly against Thorin's abdomen. This time around he gives him time to adjust. Richard's probably screaming at them for the way they fuck up his ideals so blatantly, but Thorin's not an asshole and though he loves taking Aidan hard and messy and, fine, they're doing this on the table Richard tends to eat at on top of that, he's not without decency. Either way, doesn't take long before Aidan stretches and breathes and yearns, "More."

They're both quickly lost. Thorin's nicer than he's been last time; he doesn't just take but tries to offer something in return, which has Aidan throwing strings of profanities about and clawing at his back and making him think of all the other things he can get him to do. The table creaks with every thrust, like it's close to falling apart. Which it probably is; it looks like it's at least two decades old. At least Thorin can find purchase on the floor from where he's standing; all Aidan manages to do is rock the table harder when his feet scramble against the couch.

A knock on the door stills them at once.

Thorin feels his heart beat in his throat. Under him, Aidan looks up with wide eyes.

When the man outside tries the door handle and they forget for a moment that the door is locked, their hearts just about stop.

"Richard?"

Dean?

"Uh, you're probably busy, but if you're not, can I borrow some of your time?"

Aidan stares. "What's Dean doing here?" he hisses under his breath.

Thorin doesn't understand, either. And, since he's remotely sure he can count as a representative of Richard, he's certain that Richard doesn't know either.

And shit. Shit. That knock was right after-

"...Right," the word stretches; insecure. Of course it is. Dean's talking at a closed door. "Listen, I know you're in there, I'm not deaf," - oh  _shit_ , Thorin and Richard alike think - "But if this is a bad timing, which I completely understand, I can come back some other time. Just, you know, let me know."

The silence draws out.

He can practically sense the dejected look on Dean's face when slowly, footsteps shuffle and slowly move away.

Richard's back. Aidan's too dumbstruck to realise it, until he feels him pulling out and wraps his legs around him in a reflex not to let him go.

"Don't you dare," he warns darkly.

Richard's mouth is dry at their current, well, _predicament_ is the only word that fits the bill, really. He doesn't know what to do. This may be one of the few times that Richard thinks he's truly afraid of himself. And then there's Dean. Who, he assumes, heard. He's torn between running after him, and getting away from Aidan, and fuck, he'd love to disappear off the face of the earth too while he's at it; there's too many things swarming his thoughts to make the right decision - or one at all.

Aidan probably senses it, because he reaches up and forces him to look at him. "Here's what we're going to do," he says. He's so affected that it has Richard faltering. There's a hint of frustration somewhere, too, but it's mostly lust. "Either you're going to bring him back, or you're going to finish what he started. You're a good guy, but right now, Richard, I don't care if you're my worst enemy." It's the haze of sex talking, because Aidan would never jeopardise their friendship so casually. He knows that. He also knows that if he doesn't do what Aidan demands of him, they'll be alright.

Still.

Richard would go for the sensible thing, if it weren't for that traitorous little voice that tells him exactly what he doesn't want to hear.

Hasn't this been what he wanted?

Richard looks down.

"Can I," he hesitates, "Should I kiss you?"

Aidan blinks, confused.

"No," he says at last, looking away, and Richard feels the rejection of that single word sear him, "If you have to ask, it already means too much for you." His head falls to the side and he looks at nothing in particular. Anywhere, Richard reads into it, is better than looking at him. Richard probably takes too long mulling over the words. They're truth, he thinks, even if they're spoken bitterly and with hurt. Thorin is strictly physical. A kiss doesn't matter to him, except as an expression of want. Richard, on the other hand, would only give one to someone special. That's how they are and that's something he could never change about himself.

He does take too long. Aidan squirms under him and tries to move away. "Get off," he whispers, humiliated, "You don't have to do this, I'll deal with it myself."

Richard makes up his mind.

He buries himself against Aidan's neck, breathes in his scent, and slowly pushes back in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I should change the rating, shouldn't I?


	5. Dean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last day of shooting is upon them, and Dean wishes he could have done things differently.

Tomorrow will be the last day.

Of course, Dean knows that there'll be interviews, and then the premiere night, and then more interviews. It'll hardly be the end of life as he's come to know it over the last year. He can't help but feel slightly despondent about it all when he flops down into his chair to get the prosthetics off.

As always, Aidan sits next to him. He watches him transform from Kíli back to the buoyant - albeit currently sleepy - Irishman. It's like a personality is peeled off and out from under it comes an entirely different person. That difference resonates down to the small details. As Kíli, he's bright, and always around; always up for a good bit of fun. He's got these excessively expressive gestures. As Aidan, he's lazy, likes junk food and stupid TV shows, and he talks with food in his mouth. It's one of the few things he's got in common with Kíli, he supposes.

Dean, who's always talking, is quiet.

One more day is ahead of them. And sure, he's the last to tell anyone that the last year hasn't been hard, because it has been. They've had their share of confrontations; it's inevitable with a group of people this large being around each other every day for so long a period. Then there have been the bruises that come with the job, the most recent one being a yellowing patch on the skin right under his left ribs. No, he does consider the other side of the coin.

But Dean hates ending things. It's not really an end, they all say. Except that it is. He'll stop seeing and being able to bother someone he's come to consider one of his best friends. There'll be oceans between them in a few days. Oceans. Plural. As if one isn't enough. It's like he's living in a dream, a long dream that was wonderful, but he needs to wake up and then when he does, he'll never truly be able to go back to that world.

There'll be only one more day of getting out of makeup, he thinks.

Aidan is out of it too, by the looks of it, because he only half-heartedly punches his on-screen brother on the shoulder - he's usually a lot rougher - and says, "Enough with the long face already. It doesn't suit you."

"Oh, and it suits you?" Dean retaliates equally poorly, which makes them both grin.

"Good. You're back among the living, then."

He understands he must have been staring. Dean shakes his head. It's been a long day and he's tired.

"I'm going to miss you, Aid," he blurts out, which is just a bit awkward because they're around other people and he doesn't usually tell Aidan something so personal except when he's very, very sure they're alone. Nevertheless, it sums up his thoughts perfectly - and some people from makeup smile at him because it reflects exactly how they feel. To make it less awkward, because he's not a sentimental wreck, damnit, he adds, "Who else is going to make me late, because of being a freaking log who can't get out of bed in the morning?"

"I'm sure you'll find someone for that," Aidan entrusts him mischievously, and right, he completely forgot he was talking to the king of innuendo. Dean's heard so many of them directed his way before to not be scandalised or in need of a defensive counter this time. "Besides," Aidan turns back to the mirror, "the real question is, who's going to put up with your complete and utter lack of manners when waking people up? Face it mate, you got lucky with me there."

Dean has been told that putting on the brightest light in the room, right after snatching away someone's blankets to hide under, as well as tickling, isn't considered nice. Of course, he's always told so by someone who makes him late. It's bloody well effective though, he thinks.

"I'm great at waking people up," Dean defends himself.

Aidan laughs. He keeps still when the last bit of grime is dabbed off his face; he's ended up with dirt in his ears and in the corners of his eyes because of impatience before, and he'd rather take a quick shower later than an extensive one that'll cost him more time. Oh, and did Dean mention it? Aidan's lazy as fuck.

Then he just sits there, waiting for Dean to be done. Since more work goes into his hair and prosthetics, he ends up quietly sitting there for fifteen more minutes. Aidan's surprisingly patient, Dean thinks, until he turns to watch the man and finds out he's fallen asleep on him. Warmth blossoms up. Trust the loud people to surprise you the most, he thinks. He's really going to miss the guy.

Aidan is still sleep-hazy when they exit the department and saunter back to their trailers. It's dark outside and the chill has them both stuff their hands into their pockets at the same time. They grin. Sometimes, Dean thinks, he feels like they've been Siamese twins in past lives or something. It'll take some getting used to, not having this anymore.

"You look happy today," he notices.

"Do I?" Aidan asks, distracted. "How so?"

"I don't know." He doesn't. But there's definitely something about him. It's like he glows. Not that Dean is going to admit to that, of course, because telling that to someone like Aidan he's glowing is like asking for a sharp comeback and then for it to be haunting you for eternity. If he's meant to find out, he will.

Aidan digs out a cigarette. "Ready for tomorrow?"

"No," Dean admits. "Just when things get interesting." He also leaves out that 'interesting' as he means it is not interesting in the good way. It's curiosity at best; in truth it's sooner dread about finding out at all. But Dean can't stand not knowing, and he's been waiting all day to bring this up with Aidan.

Of course Aidan doesn't pass up on the chance to ask. "Interesting," he states with a laugh rather than asks. "Out with it then, what did you find?"

Dean thinks. But who's he fooling? Now that he's said this much, Aidan is bound to needle it out of him anyway.

He opens his mouth.

"Hold on, hold on! First things first. Do I want to know this?"

Dean throws him a look, right before raising his hands in defeat. It's a charade, because if anyone lives up to being killed by curiosity, it'll be Aidan. "Forget I mentioned it," he says and walks on.

In fact, Dean's dying to talk about it to someone.

"Hey, hold on!" the other man follows him, "Tell me!"

"Maybe. Keep a secret?"

Aidan returns Dean's question and subsequent careful behaviour, looking around to see if no one's listening in, with an enthusiastic nod. It probably only adds to the mystery, but Dean's got a good reason for not wanting people to listen in. He rolls his eyes. Of course Aidan's excited. He always is when there's secrets involved; he's as defenceless as a bear near a honey jar, even if he usually tries not to look too eager for decency's sake.

"I think Richard's seeing someone."

Just as expected, Aidan drops silent immediately. Dean grins smugly at his awesome powers of clairvoyance. So maybe he's not thoroughly happy about it, but talking about it at least beats keeping it to himself. He continues, "I went to his trailer the other night to see if he's been doing alright. We all know he's been off for weeks."

Aidan carefully asks, "And?"

"Obvious."

Dean misses the way Aidan goes rigid, because he's busy looking at the ground. He doesn't frankly know why he's so bothered about it in the first place, but thankfully he manages to keep up appearances. "I don't know who though. Just, best not to tell him. You know him, he'd get embarrassed and he probably doesn't need that right now. If I'm right, it'll be hard enough on him, what with things ending tomorrow. Come in for a drink?"

When Aidan snaps out of it and realises with a start that they've arrived at the doorstep of Dean's temporary housing, Dean smiles. Typical. "Or," he suggests, "Get some sleep. But, just saying, I'd appreciate the drink."

"I," Aidan starts, before he cuts it off there. He suddenly looks completely out of it, like he shouldn't be there or just remembered something. "I should go, I think. Raincheck on the drink, mate?"

Dean doesn't have it in him to say no.

Which is why the night before the last day of shooting, he's looking at his closest friend's departing form and thinking, _this was not the way tonight was supposed to go_. Because he's alone now, and he doesn't know if he can handle it. The world may think of him as careless; and there's only a few people in that world who know better, who see past the guards. One is walking away. But he lets it be, anyway. He's Dean. He doesn't impede.

 

*********

 

And then the last day comes, and goes.

Richard, for all his returned composure and ability to continue like nothing was ever wrong, sports a love bite. A fucking, Dean stresses, love bite. He's not sure whether to be disappointed or appalled or, oh, whatever - but it's so unlike the man and somehow it always gets so right in his line of sight that he finds himself staring at it pretty much constantly.

He corners him somewhere around eleven, when they're taking a break. Nobody's yet noticed a thing and Dean just has to do something before anyone sees. He wants this last day to run smoothly.

"Uh," he starts awkwardly, "Rich."

The undivided, unaware attention that he's given makes him slightly awkward. This is the man who plays Thorin with such conviction that looking at him now, out of character but still in his attire, makes him no less imposing. Dean sits down on a branch next to him, cleverly blocking anyone's view. "You, uh," he begins. "I think some of your makeup's fading."

Richard blinks at him, still as stoic. He doesn't get it, then.

"You really ought to get it fixed before the next take."

"Oh!" Richard registers, "Right. Sorry about that," which is, Dean thinks, probably referring to having to be told twice before getting it, but which is in this situation making Dean feel particularly uncomfortable at the same time. "Where?" he then inconveniently asks.

Dean thinks this must be one of the most awkward talks he's ever had with a grown man. Especially one over thirty - so Aidan doesn't count. Besides, with Aidan it's usually him who gets embarrassed, not the other way around. "There's this small, uh," he points to his own neck as if to illustrate, "bite. Spot. Shit. I meant spot."

Richard stares. Then his cool falls and Thorin is suddenly a man who doesn't know what to do with himself.

It's not like Dean is any better. The tiny but crucial slip in his words wasn't supposed to be there. He was supposed to casually remark it, have him fix it, and be done with it for the rest of the day. Now, he's virtually just admitted to knowing Richard is invested in someone. As if him calling out at the shut door of a trailer at night that he's heard the whispers and moans wasn't enough, it's now confirmed. "Look, it's nothing. I'm sure Julie can cover that up in less than a twenty seconds."

"Yes," Richard says distantly, "Yes." He doesn't want to get caught with a hickey right now, not on this day, so he quickly gets up. "Thanks," he murmurs, "I should get that looked at."

Dean throws him the brightest smile he can fake. "Don't mention it."

When Richard's leaving, he can't stop but call after him," Hey, Rich." The man in Thorin's attire turns, completely flustered. It's an odd sight. "It's good to see you happy. You deserve it mate," Dean says, and at least he's honest about that.

Richard doesn't know how to properly respond to that, because the smile he gives is not quite whole.

The next few hours, Richard withdraws more and more into himself and lets Thorin out. It may have anything to do with the moment where Dean talked to him, but he doesn't deem it likely. It feels like Richard's finally loosening the reins on the role he's created for himself. Thorin is whole and complete; he responds perfectly and not once does he miss a beat.

The only thing that's less good about this - you'd expect there to be only advantages - is that Thorin naturally doesn't care for cameras and lighting and doesn't bother using them for his advantage either, which means he's in inconvenient spots all the time and doesn't listen to advice from the sidelines, which has the crew in a twist.

But that's something they can deal with, because as Thorin he's sublime.

Dean finds himself distracted more often than not. These are people he's not going to see anymore in costume in a couple of hours, unless it's on the silver screen. He's always had distinctly less trouble starting a project than ending one, especially one as large a production as The Hobbit, but this one will be a hard one to end. So he's been an understudy for someone else, one of few who happened to get his chance. He knows he's convinced everyone that he makes a great Fíli. That only makes everything more valuable in his eyes, and harder to leave behind.

Well before the usual time they end - which is somewhere around seven or later if need be - Peter calls out that it's a wrap and Dean suddenly gets a lump in his throat. That's it, then.

Aidan thankfully slings an arm over his shoulder at that moment, as if sensing it, but when Dean looks him, the man doesn't look so happy himself either. Nevertheless he asks, "You alright there, Deano?"

"Yeah," he nods.

"It never gets normal, does it?"

Dean knows exactly what he's talking about. "It's not like we'll never see each other again," he reasons, because that's the general way in which he responds to these situations. They all do.

The fact remains that it's always like that though. They'll still see each other at interviews and maybe, for those who don't live time zones apart, they meet up once or twice. But it'll be completely different. They will be like people from the same hometown who once knew each other but have no place to return to. And gradually, they'll become acquaintances rather than friends. He doesn't want that to happen to Aidan and him - Richard and he have never been particularly close, though he'll be hundreds of miles away in a few days too and Dean doesn't want him to - but he knows it's inevitable.

"You're thinking again," Aidan breaks up his thoughts. "To think of how pennies you could have earned."

"How about that drink tonight?" Dean suddenly says.

Aidan doesn't respond immediately like he usually does. He looks away as if not wanting to answer; which means the answer'll be no. All at once Dean knows it, feels something stick in his gut. Something's not right here.

He tries to discard the feeling. It's the fatigue, he tells himself. And he does need to get some sleep. They'll not leave straight away; there are a few days for them left. For most of them anyway; a few people have decided to take the earliest flight home. But most of the men he's worked with seem to figure that, what with them having been on this project for more than a year in this all-consuming schedule, a few days extra to wind down before returning to everyday life would be good. "Tomorrow?" he suggests.

"Yeah, absolutely," Aidan says with a renewed smile.

"Great."

Maybe that'll be better for Dean, too. Richard's one of those few leaving early, due to obligations in London or something, and he kind of would like to see him later.

Adam jumps in next to them and hugs them out of nowhere, which pulls a squeak out of Aidan and a laugh from Dean. "Oh, you guys," he says, tears in his eyes even if Dean can't see them. "Last year has been so wonderful. I'm gonna miss you so much. You'd better come for a drink with the guys tonight."

Dean grins. "I'll get back to you about that."

"Oh, come on. It's Rich's and Ken's last night, we can't just let him go without one night of seeing either one properly drunk. Don't you know how long some of us have had to wait for that?"

"Richard's coming?" Aidan perks up. Dean does too; he thinks the odds of him being in that pub tonight have just gone up extensively.

"Ah yes, well, he says he's tired. But we're not going to have no for an answer, of course." Coming from someone who looks as nice as Ori, Adam tends to add a little bite to his presence and the result is slightly unsettling. "We're thinking of cornering him somewhere right after he's out of his costume, so he'll just have to come along."

"And you think he'll be amenable?" Dean asks. He notices that Aidan's no longer paying attention and tries to see where his gaze leads him.

All the while, Adam keeps talking about his master plan. "After we get them to the tap and make sure the first few rounds are on us. That's the second part of the plan. It'd be really great if you could join. More chance for the rest of us not to end the night broke, too. Guys. Uh."

Richard looks at Aidan and smiles. It's secretive. Promising. More than a little uncomfortable, too; at least on Richard's side. And without warning, it crashes into him.

"I should go," Dean smiles with empty eyes and turns around.

There'll be oceans between them tomorrow. Right no he feels like he's left alone on the far side of the world already.

What's worse is that there'll be just one small sea between _them_.

 

*********

 

Dean's not left alone, like he ought to be. Adam at least knows when his company's not wanted, which leaves his logic only one other person who could be banging on his door right now. He tries to ignore it. Childishly, when he gets tired of covering his ears with his hands, he turns up the volume of the TV show he's watching-but-not-really-watching. For starters, he's got no bloody clue what the woman on the screen is talking about. He appreciates the way her voice is able to block out almost any noise though.

It's not exactly banging, if he's honest; it's more like an incessant knock. "Dean," Aidan pleads.

He's not opening.

"Please don't make me use the key."

Crap. Slipped his mind.

Dean quickly assesses the door. Nope, it opens to the outside, which means barring it with a chair won't be possible. He really can't have Aidan bothering him right now. Maybe he can tie the door handle to something inside, if he's quick about it. He just can't be arsed to move.

"Shit. Seriously."

A key is being turned, and the door opens. Dean morosely continues looking at the screen like it didn't just happen. He isn't proud of making his best friend worry, nor does he like how embarrassing this is to himself. He's Dean. Meddling's not his thing, and this whole wallowing in self-pity most definitely isn't either. For what it's worth, he does try to push it away and try at a sense of decorum. "Hey."

Aidan's not pleased. He flops down on the couch in front of him. To make a statement, he says it again. "Seriously."

Dean shrugs apologetically.

"Richard."

"You make it sound so dramatic," he pulls a face.

Aidan sharply returns, "I wasn't the one who walked out on Adam mid-sentence."

"It wasn't mid-sentence."

"Wasn't it?"

Come to think about it, he can't remember a thing about Adam's message. He could very well have been talking. It adds to the guilt.

"So," Dean says tastelessly, "You and Richard, huh. Congrats, mate. Sorry if I don't seem beside myself, it's been kinda sudden, you know."

Aidan doesn't know how to respond to that, so he sits back and reluctantly says back, a budding smile suppressed on his lips, "I know." He stares at Dean, assessing him. "Wow," he takes a swallow from Dean's cup of coffee and cringes at the lack of sugar, "You like Rich. I never... Well. Things just got interesting indeed."

Interesting. Huh.

It's not the word Dean would use to describe it. He doesn't know what to say. It probably shows, because Aidan gestures for him to close his mouth. There's definitely a smile on his face right now. It may not be as vibrant as it usually is with Aidan, but it's definitely _pleased_.

"This is going to be so awkward," Aidan says at last.

Fuck, Dean thinks, try changing the tense there Aidan, because it already is. He frowns. "Is this some kink of yours?"

He's always suspected him of having secrets like that. Aidan, however, thankfully looks confused in reply. He realises he's just been downing more than a third of the coffee and guiltily puts the mug back, shoving it back to Dean's side of the table like it's a fucking token of apology.

"Promise you're not going to think me mental."

"I think you probably already are," Dean says incredulously, "but fine."

"It's not exactly Richard and me."

Things just got very confusing.

"This is going to sound weird. It's, uh." Aidan has the decency to look embarrassed. He scratches his ear. "Well, it's Thorin."

Dean doesn't fully understand and tries to work out the logics in his mind. He thinks Aidan well ought to be embarrassed. That - what does that mean, anyway? - that's definitely a kink. Aidan supplements the details properly graphically.

"He's a beast, Dean. God."

Dean's head rings. He doesn't want to know that. What is he supposed to do with this kind of information, anyway? What does Aidan expect him to think? Should he be happy, or sad, or fuck, he doesn't even know how he feels anymore. This looks to him like a big joke.

Aidan leans forward. His hands fold on the table in front of him like he's sharing a secret. "What I'm trying to say is, it's not him. Just Thorin. I'm not interested in Richard, nor is he interested in me. So seize the day, my friend."

Of all the things, Dean doesn't think he could ever have expected their last day of shooting to be ending up like this.

Aidan seems not to notice it, but he feels himself getting angrier at the suggestion by the minute. It takes a lot of him to pretend to mull it over. He opens his mouth, closes it again, then asks, "Can I get back to you about that?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still doubting whether to have Richard's or Aidan's point of view for the next chapter. If there's a strong preference from you guys, let me know!


	6. Aidan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aidan visits Richard in London.

Two weeks later, Aidan's on a plane again.

He's been in Dublin for a week and two days, trying to pick up his usual life and meeting up with friends he's not properly seen for far too long, whenever he's not with family or working. Working, these days, consists of Skype calls about the big premiere day and the schedule he's going to adhere to when promotions fully kick off. Those meetings also tell him that back in New Zealand, it's all a big mess.

Post-production is behind on schedule, second week in, and it was already a tight schedule to begin with. Peter doesn't seem to be sleeping - no news there - and there's so much hassle about his costumes and this scene due for the second movie that suddenly they want to change, and just about everything. It feels like he never left.

Except things do remind him that he's no longer there. The weather's freezing, this side of the hemisphere. Despite that, the weather's far more predictable than it used to be in New Zealand. A forecast that tells of a rainy day doesn't suddenly send in a blizzard for good fun. And then there's the matter of the two people who are on his mind almost constantly.

Richard's in London and surprisingly quiet. His Skype calls are short and awkward, and not making Aidan feel wanted or in any other way telling him that Richard doesn't think this was one big mistake. So after a few days, he decides to avoid the subject.

Then there's Dean, who not once comes online. Taking time zones into account, Aidan's sure he's online when it's convenient for the man, and he sends him text messages to please come online so it can't be that Dean doesn't know. He really wants to talk to him. They've been on a dry spell, if you can call it that, for two weeks. He's not heard or seen from him. It makes him feel like he's been abandoned.

He knows with utmost clarity now that he should never have told him about him and Thorin. But, he thinks confused, friends don't keep secrets. Besides, it's not like they're romantically involved. It's just great, life-altering sex. Just that. Dean can steal Richard's heart and he'd be happy for him. Aidan's not sure if he wants to give up the thing he and Richard's alter ego have going on, because it's just that good, but he's certain he would consider it if it meant Dean could be happy. And besides, Richard's not exactly shown any remaining interest in him that way over Skype.

The last couple of days in Dublin, Aidan's been pretending to be happy so much that he's gotten bloody tired of himself.

Which is why he's currently on the wrong side of the Irish Sea, with a wallet full of British Pounds, a pair of sunglasses in mid-winter - the movie's not out yet, but he really doesn't want to draw attention to himself - and slightly peeved over the ridiculous fares of London cabs.

It's either this or New Zealand. If Richard leaves him standing at the door, well, it won't have cost him a small fortune.

Either way, he thinks to himself, he knows Richard's home and he knows he doesn't have plans for the next few days, because unlike Dean, Richard and he actually talked. So perhaps Richard doesn't see this coming and could do anything that's not in Aidan's best interest; the bet is still a hell of a lot safer.

Aidan's nervous when he rings the doorbell. It's a beautiful house, though it looks too immaculate for his taste; black lacquered door, classy lionhead knocker that people probably never use, and in a remotely nice part of town, too.

Richard opens up, and relief washes over him.

"Aidan."

Well, talk about confusion and awkward silences.

"Hi."

"What are you...-"

"-Doing here?" Aidan thought that once that door opened, the nervousness would fade. Here he is, having to explain himself. "I needed to see you."

"But you've been seeing me online," Richard wonders, tries to laugh it off uncomfortably. Aidan feels himself warm up at the familiarity.

"Not Thorin though," he says, and it's breathless in all the wrong ways for someone who's still standing on the doorstep with a backpack slung over his shoulder. One look at Richard's response has him cringe. It's going to be a hotel downtown and an early flight back home tomorrow, he thinks.

Richard steps back into the house. That'll be it.

"Come in," he says, "I don't think I'm comfortable enough letting the neighbours listen in on what you're no doubt about to say."

Aidan's smile lights up his face.

 

*********

Much to his disappointment, it seems Thorin's not home. Richard's nice enough and he offers him a cup of tea and a place to stay for the night, and it feels really good to share stories about the last year, but he shows no interest whatsoever.

It's unsettling if he thinks back on that one time that Dean knocked on the door and forced Richard back, and Richard took him. They've not done that since, thankfully - he contemplated telling Dean about it, but he's lost the heart to - yet it's still weird how Richard can treat him like it doesn't mean anything. Thorin's in there somewhere, isn't he?

Instead he keeps talking about the safe subject of schedules and how his days are so full that he doesn't know what to do with free time when it happens to him.

"Did you talk to Dean?" Aidan blurts out eventually, tired of wondering about why Richard won't look at him.

Richard's in the middle of mentioning that he can't wait to get back on a plane and see everyone again, especially Martin and Graham, who've become something like best buds over the span of months. He blinks.

"Come to think of it," he looks down into his tea cup, "I haven't, no. Is everything alright with him?"

Aidan raises his shoulders in defeat. He has trouble not letting his worry show on his face. Of course he does show it anyway; Dean's one of the select few people he can't stand being ignored from. Thank goodness they've skipped the small talk and jumped to the heart of the matter though. "I haven't talked to him since the day I left."

Richard sits back. "Did something happen?" he asks.

"No," Aidan expressively communicates. He's lying and not ashamed of it though; they didn't fight and they certainly didn't do anything else that could be cause for concern. Part of him wonders if Richard would respond if he told him that something did happen between them. He's ashamed of even thinking it, two seconds into that mindslip. The fact remains; Richard's not going to hear this from him. He sighs. "Look. I fucked up. Before you say another word, I don't want to talk about it. I hoped you could at least tell me he's been doing okay."

"Is that why you're here?"

"No," Aidan admits.

He thinks he sees a flicker of something in Richard's eyes. It's gone before he can pin it down.

They sit in silence for a long time.

"Do you want me to ask Martin?" Richard offers after what feels like minutes.

Nobody can get away from Martin once that man has something on his mind. It's been like that on the set, and he can't imagine it being different now. Aidan nods. "Please. Don't tell him it's because of me. Maybe it's nothing and I'll be making everyone wonder." What he doesn't say is that Martin is sharp and will see through him immediately.

Richard accepts those conditions with grace. He takes his phone from his back pocket and sends off a text message, before tucking it back.

"How long will you be staying?" he asks.

"My flight back goes 19:30 tomorrow."

That takes Richard aback. "So soon?"

"Don't want to overstay my welcome," Aidan explains weakly. The truth is that he has kind of intended this to be a - rather time- and money-consuming, admitted - booty call, which it turns out it isn't and won't be, even if it's got all the awkwardness right in place for it. He's got some work stuff planned, but that's not until Friday in the afternoon. "Either way, I'm pretty cramped too," he adds when he gets that Richard's expression rebels against his previous explanation.

"I've got plans in the city tonight," Richard explains from where he's seated, "Dinner with friends. If I'd known, I would have made arrangements for you."

Oh. "I can get a hotel if you want." Aidan's heart is not in that sentence, and he's probably showing his disappointment pretty obviously, but he can't be arsed to hide it now. Richard however laughs it off and shakes his head.

"No, stay. I've got a TV, a fridge and a spare bed. It'll be good for me, having someone over. All that talking over the internet is really not my thing. I don't know how you do that."

Aidan grins. "Yeah, it kinda showed, mate. Are you sure?"

"Positively so. We could go out tomorrow, if you like? Have you been to London before?"

Aidan's been there enough times to know his way around. It's one of those cities he can't avoid when it comes to auditions and interviews for shows he's on. He knows by heart which lines will take him into Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. He does want Richard to show him, though, so he plays it down and nods in a way that indicates half-half.

"Good, then I'll show you around town."

And like that, he feels that his visit just got back a bit of niceness.

 

*********

Richard's guest room is dark and quiet.

Aidan's used to noise, and traffic lights reflected off ceilings, and drunk people at 4 A.M. But it's only eleven when he turns in for the night. He lost his appetite for TV shows and his phone half an hour ago, and he feels worse lying in this too empty room, too tidy for the likes of him, in an empty house.

Dean still hasn't returned a single message, though his phone says he's received them all. Aidan feels childish for having added reading confirmation feedback to the emails he sends out to Auckland, New Zealand. The first time he got a response that said it'd been read made him so happy that he hasn't had the heart to remove the notification since.

It's quiet without him around. Richard will wake him up in the morning, and it'll most likely be gentle and take him ages. None of that hitting him with pillows. He doesn't know how he got so used to that, but he misses it now.

It's with that thought on his mind that he finally drifts off.

It's not yet morning when he's woken up. His sleep-addled mind supplies that it's definitely not 4 AM either, because he's too tired right now and 4 AM, he can usually handle. So it takes him a moment to figure out what woke him up.

A dark shadow next to the bed looks down on him.

For a second Aidan forgets where he is. His heart hammering, he scrambles up against the wall and wakes up in the blink of an eye. It's too dark to see clearly, though he recognises the silhouette and tells himself to calm down.

"Richard." Shit.

Normally, Richard would now apologise for scaring him like that. So Aidan waits. It never happens. He simply stands there, looking down at him with an unreadable silence. It makes him uncomfortable. Aidan is too surprised to think about pulling up the sheets around him or otherwise removing his unease.

When Richard doesn't speak, Aidan rasps, "Say something."

This is all a tad too creepy. Next time, he makes a mental note, Richard will just have to come over to him; where the house is not silent and where he can deal with people sleepwalking. Which is, at least, what he's suspecting is happening now.

Richard dispels that thought when he crawls onto the bed, which really has Aidan freaking out, because he can see his expression now, and it's feral and fuck, these things should not be happening when he's hardly lucid at god-knows-what-hour. But then he forces him into the corner between two walls and kisses him and Aidan can't help but accommodate him.

A taste of alcohol lingers on Richard's tongue. It's faint, and not nearly enough to get him drunk to the point where he doesn't know what he's doing. Aidan thinks Richard knows exactly what he's doing, because it takes only a few seconds before Aidan's straddling him, all the while helplessly pressed up against the wall with movements that are downright sinful.

This isn't Richard, it dawns on him.

When the bed moves, unfit for what they're doing, Aidan wastes no time and pushes him down into the sheets. He sits atop him to prevent him from going anywhere, and looks down. Contrary to himself, Richard's fully dressed. He moves his hands to buttons to expose more of his chest, and they become undone remarkably fast. When Richard moves up to slip out of the sleeves however, Aidan pushes him back down. While his head's still high from sleep and feeling wanted, he knows that that's not how it's going to be.

This time around, and oh, he knows he'll probably regret this later, but this time around he doesn't want to be helplessly on the receiving side alone. Richard's - Thorin's - eyes stare up at him in confusion. He smiles and leans down to claim his lips again. All the while his hands are busy undoing the belt. When it comes loose, he pushes down the upper part of his dress pants and licks Thorin's lips.

"What are you-?" Thorin asks, which is odd, because Thorin wouldn't be asking something like that. Aidan pushes the notion aside. Instead he unashamedly wets his palm with saliva and wraps it around the base of his exposed erection before drawing up in one, languid stroke. "Shh, don't talk."

God, he's needed this so badly.

The way Thorin's body arches up and how he gasps only further encourages Aidan. It's beautiful. He doesn't think he can ever get enough of this. It's not even being in control over someone of the likes of Thorin that does it for him. Sure, it's a large part of the reason why desire is pooling in his chest and loins, but there's something else. Soon, he's nipping at his neck, occasionally worrying a nipple, while his hand builds up a proper rhythm that has the man under him writing.

Aidan thinks he's intoxicated when he slips back on his haunches and looks at the almost libertine man who is lost in pleasure.

Slowly his lips seek out the hollow of his abdomen. The skin under his mouth is hot. Promising. Aidan slides lower before he loses himself in the sensation and forgets his intent, and then he moves too low. Thorin groans.

Indulging him with a chuckle, he takes his cock into his mouth all at once and presses his tongue hotly against the shaft. Thorin gasps at the sudden sensory input. It's got him reeling and scrambling for purchase. His hands dig into the sheets.

"Christ, _Aidan!_ "

Aidan feels bloody well accomplished at the sound.

He doesn't know how it happens, but somehow, somehow he thinks of Dean in Thorin's place, pushing himself off the bed and stretching gorgeously at what's being done to him.

Aidan feels something not unlike a spark jolt down to his groin.

He's got only seconds to think about it, before the thought continues to unfurl and in his imagination, he himself is replaced by Richard.

It's sudden and unexpected, and word of it should never get out, but if he's honest with himself - and it's hard to be, because this is one of his best friends he's thinking these things of - it's incredibly hot. That seems to resonate in the way he moves around Thorin; when he briefly returns to the present, the man's close to falling apart.

Aidan pulls away with an audible pop, looks down with lust-filled eyes, and positions himself above him.

He doesn't want preparation. He's too far gone, and it'll take too long. Aidan didn't want it to be rough this time around. But that ended a few seconds ago. Now, it's everything he needs.

The way he's filled when he moves his hips down is painful, but it's not nearly enough. Heavy breaths clog the air. He bites his lip and rests his hands on Thorin's chest for support.

If he'd open his eyes, he would see Thorin look at him with concern. But Aidan doesn't. There's a fire in him that needs to be quenched before it consumes him whole. He needs so much more that he doesn't care right now how great his discomfort in the morning will be.

Dean pulls Richard down for a kiss, and they move together delicately as if the act is something sacred. Dean looks vulnerable, despite the way his fingertips dig mercilessly into Richard's back.

Aidan breathes in deep and opens his eyes wide. The very air singes his throat.

Then Thorin puts his hands on Aidan's hips and flips them over.

"What are you doing?" he whispers. Worry is in his eyes; no doubt it has to do with the way he feels sore all over.

Aidan stares up at him like a trapped animal.

When Thorin kisses him softly, subduing any- and everything Aidan tries to further urge them on again in favour of a slow, attentive pace, he feels something inside him break. Wetness pools in the corner of his eyes.

Richard makes love to him, as Aidan cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry!!


	7. Richard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard and Aidan talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for bearing with me, you guys :( I swear, I'm doing my best to give them a good shot at happiness, but argh, this just needed to happen first.

Richard looks down on the sleeping form in his guest bedroom. The man curled up under and around warm sheets in his spare bed looks like he usually does when he's not scheming things or otherwise preoccupied; he looks at peace with the world.

He doesn't know what yesterday meant. One moment, Aidan was on top of his game. The next, well, a sobbing mess. Richard likes to think he wasn't the cause for that, because he doesn't know how he handles things like that.

The thing is, Aidan's a bit of a foreign species to him. He doesn't act how Richard expects people to normally act. Just when he thinks he's got something figured out, he goes and does something so impossible for him to grasp that it throws his carefully ordered life upside down again. Aidan is a hurricane, who falls asleep at the most inconvenient times. He's a trip to the moon and the warmth of a home.

Aidan's sinful in so many ways. Richard doesn't go for sinful; he likes to know what he's up against. Yet he's drawn into him again and again without a chance at escape, and left to pick up the pieces every single damned time. Usually those pieces belong to him. This time, it's Aidan's pieces that are scattered all throughout the room.

Although you wouldn't say, looking down at him now. Aidan hasn't got a care in the world.

Richard wants to hold him close, make it better, and keep him by his side always.

He also knows that that's not how Aidan rolls.

Richard really ought to tell him that Thorin was never there. Thorin's hardly been in his head since the flight home. Sure, he's popped up every now and then, usually in situations where Richard doesn't feel at ease and it's good to tap into the endless courage of the dwarf. But yesterday, it's been all Richard.

Richard isn't as exciting as Thorin is, however. Stability is dull to Aidan, and Richard certainly doesn't usually prefer the rough sex that Aidan somehow keeps manoeuvring him into. He's not the inventive sort of person with boundless stamina that someone like Aidan needs.

Not to get him wrong, Richard loved wearing Thorin's skin and experiencing all that.

But Thorin's fading from him, Aidan lost it yesterday, and gradually, what little control they had over the situation is slipping away from them.

He gently nudges Aidan again. This time he seems more successful, because the man stirs and peeks open his eyes lazily.

He's sin, Richard reminds himself before he goes and does something stupid like lean down for a kiss. His currently exposed skin and messy curls certainly inspire it.

"Good morning," he says.

"Mh, what time is it?"

"Almost noon," Richard chuckles, because he knows how to fix things, and right now he's doing his very best. "I got you breakfast."

There are questions on the tip of Aidan's tongue. He looks at him incomprehensibly. In the end he only sits up and nods, "Thanks," before gathering about his clothes. They've seen each other naked enough times by now, but tension is thick when he pulls on his clothes and tugs up his jeans.

They eat in silence, too. Richard's already eaten. He curses himself for it now. If he'd have something to do, his hands wouldn't feel so aimless and he could have distracted himself. Instead he watches as Aidan finishes a sandwich and thinks about how those lips were not half a day ago.

"Martin got back to me," Richard says to break the silence.

Aidan looks up at once.

"Apparently," he says wryly, "Dean has had no trouble contacting any of the others. Martin checked for me." Martin's better at these kinds of things. He's got no trouble winning people's hearts over and he's easy company. Most secrets on set were undoubtedly kept by him. It's convenient for him to have a friend like that. Dean spoke to anyone who messaged him.

"Oh," Aidan looks disappointed. Hurt.

Richard's not done. It's something else that bothers him. "Why would he avoid me, Aidan?"

Aidan knows. Richard can tell it, the moment he looks into his eyes. He keeps quiet because he doesn't want to lie, but he never denies anything. It's agonising. They sleep together, they do the most terrible stuff to each other in the name of desire, but they can't be truthful around each other. So Richard throws his suspicions out there and looks for the reaction.

"You said you fucked up with him. Was it about me?"

Aidan sits frozen.

Richard knows enough.

Taking a deep breath, he sits back. He doesn't want to talk about it. In fact it would be great if it'd just go away and not show itself again, but knowing Aidan, that will not be in it for him. "I think we should stop this... thing we're doing."

Opposite from him, Aidan's eyes widen. His sandwich drops from his hand and onto his lap. He doesn't notice. Suddenly he looks small again, and Richard wants to take back his words.

"Why?"

"What is it we're doing, Aidan?"

Richard expects Aidan not to know what to say to that. He doesn't know the answer to it himself, because what is it they're doing? It's got no future, and it's hurting.

"We're having amazing sex," Aidan says and softly smiles. Richard feels his throat constrict. They do.

But then Aidan finishes his sentence, oblivious to all around him, "Thorin and I."

Thorin. Always it's Thorin. Richard is close to falling apart. He can't take it. It feels like he's suffocating. So he thinks he's excused when for once he lets go of his compulsion to be liked by others and aims for guilt. "Did you ever stop to consider how I feel about it?"

Aidan blinks.

The ticking of the clock drones on while it echoes through his kitchen.

"... No," he says, so quietly.

Finally, Richard thinks, out comes the truth. He's not a cruel person, so he doesn't want to press the matter. It's time Aidan considered it though. Richard may be boring compared to Thorin, but he's got a bigger heart for sure, and it's been trodden on too often.

"Think about it, please."

"I'm sorry," Aidan murmurs.

"You're sorry? Aid, you were crying. Think of how that makes me feel. I kept wondering if there was something I was doing wrong."

"Thorin," the other corrects him without cheek.

"Me," Richard makes sure there's no doubt about that. "But you thought it was him, didn't you?"

"You?"

Richard returns him with an apologetic look. To think that yesterday he'd been making plans about what things to take him to see this afternoon. To think that yesterday, he planned on getting Aidan an other plane ticket, just so he could stay a day longer. He hasn't bought that 'things to do'-excuse one bit. None of that is likely anymore.

Aidan looks so lost, but Richard has to stay strong. If he doesn't do that now, he'll only keep hurting himself.

It feels like breaking up, he thinks sadly, which is ironic. They were never together.

"But if it was you," Aidan starts. The cogs in his head grind his many stray thoughts into one conclusion, and he presses a hand against his mouth when that result dawns on him. The jar of marmalade becomes all he focuses on. "Oh, god. I'm so sorry." Aidan looks up. "You have to believe me, that was never my intention."

"I know," Richard says sadly.

"But why would you come to me? You came to me, Rich. I didn't..."

When Aidan sees the response written in Richard's ever-transparent eyes, he knows.

His secret's out now.

Aidan knows Richard's fallen for him.

He shakes his head vigorously. "You can't," he says, "Oh, shit. Shit. Please forget about me. It wasn't supposed to be this way. And you," Aidan points an accusatory finger across the table in his direction, suddenly angry, "Why would you do that? Why didn't you tell me?"

Confused at the anger directed at him and thrice rejected, Richard weakly replies, "You know why."

"I'm an awful person."

 _Aidan's_ an awful person?

"Don't talk to Dean about this, please. This is my mess. I need to clean this up."

Richard feels like he's drowning in secrets and things he doesn't know about. He aimed for a clean break. Now, he's not sure whether he loves or hates Aidan anymore. The fact that Aidan's still there and still throwing more cards onto the table really isn't helping.

"Dean."

Aidan cringes.

"Are you...-" Richard swallows. "Please answer me this honestly. Are you and him...?"

"What? No!" If Aidan wasn't pissed before, he is now. "What kind of person do you take me for?!" Though he deflates soon after and limply runs a hand through his hair. "Don't answer that, please. I can't blame you for thinking it, but I don't think I can stand hearing you say it out loud."

Richard's so incredibly confused. "Then?" he wonders.

"Well, I'm sure you're able to figure it out by now," Aidan pushes his plate further up on the table. The unfinished sandwich is neatly placed in the middle, and he brushes the crumbs that missed his plate up into his hands. "You're right, Rich. We should give this a rest. You're a great person and I enjoyed every time it happened. But I wronged you and I'm sorry I did."

Richard's throat is dry. He stares up at Aidan, who gets up from his seat and reaches for his coat. He doesn't want him to go. And if he does, he wants him to come back to him. He wants to take back everything he's said. Aidan doesn't have to go. He can be fine with pretending it's Thorin he wants, not him. He can be.

But he knows he really can't.

Richard rings him a cab and watches him leave with a heavy heart.

He'll be here, he thinks. If Aidan changes his mind, he'll be here.

It's only then, when he stares into the empty house that's suddenly too tidy and too little reminiscent of the chaos incarnate that just left, that he understands what Aidan was trying to keep from him.

He knows that Aidan won't come back.

Dean, who is his best friend, likes him.

Him.

Richard, not Thorin.


	8. Dean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day of the premiere, they all see each other again.

Seven weeks go by before Dean cracks around the edges.

He's had a great time with family and friends in those seven weeks. Really, he can't have wished for a better way to spend time. They feel like a stretched out holiday in the middle of summer, where nothing's on your schedule and you can do whatever you want. The best part? Aside from the occasional job, he really hasn't had anything scheduled, which means he has been doing exactly that.

He's contemplated getting in his car and just going somewhere unplanned. Somewhere around week three or four, he's taken a mini holiday in a remote village on a whim. It's been great. Dean is from New Zealand. He knows the scenery, because it's been there all his life. It still awes him, but in a different way. Which means that he's been able to skip the usual touristy stuff and all there has been left for him has been to enjoy the weather and enjoy the absence of plans, and grab his camera whenever the light passed over a hilltop so beautifully that he can't let it go without trying to capture it.

He brought a book that he only finished halfway before putting it aside. He's not a reader; or perhaps the books he picks up turn out never to be his thing. The book is still in his unpacked luggage, three weeks later.

Of course, it would have been infinitely better if he could have shared stories about his lack of anything happening with Aidan like he's gotten used to doing, and god knows how many times he's been itching to get out his phone and send him something. A text, or a photo, or just something that causes a beep on a phone on the other side of the planet. Seriously. He's looked it up. Almost straight on the other side. How depressing is that?

But he thinks he's been right about avoiding that contact for a few weeks in favour of sorting out his own thoughts.

Trust Aidan to fuck things up right when he thinks the worst - shooting a movie for a year while managing not to tell anyone, or coming to terms with it at all for that matter - is over.

There may have been a multitude of times where he's wanted to ring him, but they all stopped when he remembers Aidan's words.

He's a beast, Dean.

It raises all sorts of visuals in his head that Dean can do without, but which he doesn't seem able to forget. Dean doesn't go for dramatics the way Aidan is prone to. Yet when, two weeks in, Aidan stops trying and there are no more text messages or offline Skype comments - Dean was not exactly offline most of those times, but thank goodness Aidan never checked with the others - and that period drags into five weeks, he's decided that it's not possibly due to Aidan's internet being disconnected or what have you, he starts to miss those messages.

Week seven, or the first days of eight - either way, two days before they're boarding the airplane - he finally sends a simple message across the oceans, "How's the rain in Ireland?"

Dean likes casual opening sentences. He could have typed a number of innuendos referring to Richard's prowess in bed, but he doesn't have it in himself to dish out jealous comments over the phone network. He's not jealous. He's a grown man who can deal with the happiness of others.

It's three o'clock in the morning right now in Ireland; why he knows this he refuses to acknowledge. Nonetheless the reply comes ten minutes later.

"Absent. Can't wait to get back to summer tho."

Dean smiles. It's a weak expression of the joy that wells up in him at the simple reply. There are no questions about how he's been, nothing at all that indicates they've gone through a rough patch. There's nothing that could set off that conversation either. This is Aidan for him; easy to talk to and forever the optimist.

It's a step in the right direction.

"Summer wants you back asap too," he types back. Dean pauses when his thumb hovers over 'send'. Is it too tacky? Several times he hits backspace. He ends up typing the same thing over again four times. The beauty of text messages, he thinks when he quickly sends it off before he can make up his mind, is that one small button is the only bridge to cross, no matter how heavy the subject. Then the way back is burned behind you forever.

"Good. In need of serious defrosting," Aidan returns easily.

Dean wants to ask. It's better not to, though. Not with their recently re-established connection, and the subject it probably refers to. Dean is not ready for that, not yet.

He wonders if he ought to let Richard hear from him too, now. No, he decides after a moment's thought. That'll be too soon. The trouble is that with Aidan, he's got himself an excuse for avoiding him. Richard never did anything wrong. If he asks why Dean never contacted him, well, Dean will be doomed.

Backing away from the subject, he thinks on what to say. Usually, when there's nothing left to say, he doesn't. It's Aidan though. Aidan, who hasn't talked to him in seven weeks. He can't just let him slip away now. "We've got alcohol."

He knows that on the other side of this conversation, at three in the morning, Aidan probably grins very smugly at his phone right now. Taught him well, Aidan did.

Dean should have known they wouldn't be able to avoid the subject altogether though.

After a casual, "I thought you'd never ask," Aidan finishes with the dreaded "How are you though?"

For niceness' sake, Dean replies, "Good, you?"

Aidan always loves to drop bombs. Dean thinks the world ought to be relieved he wasn't born in the atomic age.

"We stopped, you know."

Silence. Dean stares down at his screen.

"Can we talk soon?" Aidan adds when it's too silent for too long.

"With alcohol," Dean blankly replies. He means it to be charming or funny, but he's only half convinced himself. Dean is glad they're not going to do this over text messages though. Remember the part about bridges burned with single keystrokes? Yeah, definitely not a good idea.

"With alcohol, mate."

Dean wants to type he misses him. He does. There'll only be a few days left between now and when they meet again, but now that they talked, he needs more of that.

Richard and Aidan stopped, it then hits home.

"How are you holding up?" he needs to know.

It's not just being polite; it actually does matter how Aidan's doing. Aidan talked about Richard with great joy, so he can only imagine that Richard ended things between them. Why he would do that is beyond him; Aidan's a sweet guy underneath all those layers, and he's definitely worthy of Richard. Or Thorin. Dean pulls a face. He still thinks the Thorin thing is a bit of a mockery.

He's afraid to hope; afraid it'll only bring more disappointment.

Aidan's number beeps, "Good. Sleepy. Can't wait to see you."

Dean's lips pull up involuntarily. He's alone, so no one will look at him oddly, but even so he wouldn't care. He laughs. "Sorry for waking you up. It's good hearing from you again."

"Miss me?" Aidan asks cheekily.

"It's strange. I'm suddenly on time for everything again."

"I see how it is."

Dean grins.

"Hey," Aidan messages him, "Gonna sleep now. Talk to Richard for me. He thinks he's done something wrong."

Dean's playful mood crumbles at once. It's replaced by renewed guilt.

"Sure," he says quietly, "Night."

"Night, Dean."

And then Aidan's off, and Dean is left in the centre of his living room, legs pulled up the chair and a sketchbook in his lap, forgotten. Suddenly, the comfort shifts and it all becomes scary again. He doesn't want to talk to Richard. He doesn't, because what would he say? Tell him that hey, he's been thinking about him in uncompromising positions? He's no hair better than Aidan, the only difference being that Aidan is comfortable with those thoughts and Dean is not.

And Aidan, god, Aidan could have certainly sprung this on him at a better moment.

Pressing that one button again throws him into a roller coaster ride of adrenaline. His palms are sweaty. This is why he hates text messages. Richard's asleep and won't reply until five-or-so hours later, which means he's going to keep staring at his phone and checking for messages for at least five, excruciating hours.

Why did he do this, anyway?

"Hi, Richard. How've you been?" It's painful in its simplicity.

Except that it should have been sent seven weeks ago.

 

*********

 

The airplane ride is, well, good. When he sees Aidan again, Dean pulls him in a bone breaking hug and doesn't let go until others start lining up waiting for their turn. James scrapes his throat behind him, but when his eyes meet Dean's, they're mirthful.

They've all missed each other.

Cameras and interviewers are swarming the plane wherever he looks. They're told over the intercom to please get ready for takeoff, which lasts as long or longer as it usually lasts. If there's one part he hates about planes, it's by far the waiting. The request turns out to be futile; nobody listens, because everybody's busy looking up friends they've not seen for so long. Having them all escorted to the plane separately and only seeing each other again there turns out to be a logistic failure.

With the risk of getting a camera shoved into his face, all the things he wants to be talking about with Aidan are obviously not a good idea.

Dean still has an arm wrapped around the man's waist when he sees Richard, crisp and beardless and in one of his finest suits seated a few chairs away from him. He's talking to one of the reporters. When he notices him, he throws him a hesitant but brilliant smile that makes Dean feel like he's shrivelling up inside, and not in all the wrong ways. Richard has always had the ability to make him feel small. Awkwardness itching under his skin, Dean looks away.

When they're finally taking off, they're all neatly seated - Aidan's of course next to him, because if he wasn't like that on the flight plan, Dean is sure he's pulled some strings to make it so - but as soon as the lights above their seats are off, they're bustling again. Three people are demanding his attention at once. There's a multitude of questions fired his way, a glass of champagne pushed into his hand, and he notices they put some music on in the background. Somewhere he hears Peter enthusiastically talk about the night's schedule and how it will all blow their minds away. It'll be like the audience never left Middle-Earth.

But they left Middle-Earth, Dean thinks. It's no longer Kíli who is by his side, and Thorin he looks up to. He's no longer Fíli. The world got complicated again for him. Instead of Kíli he finds Aidan by his side, whom he's had to miss for far too long, which made the weeks in-between shooting and today all a bit of a roller coaster ride of insecurities to Dean. Was Aidan upset with him for not responding, or sad, or did other things happen between him and Richard? He still doesn't know.

Then there's Richard who adds to the confusion. Somehow Dean feels that Richard knows. There's something different about him and while he's not quite sure what it is, he knows it's connected. Then there's Aidan, who wanted to talk. On top of that, they're supposedly no longer involved. So all in all, there are few reasons speaking against Richard's ignorance.

Just out of the plane, they hit the bizarre amount of people crowding around an equally bizarrely long red carpet. Dean's got no time to breathe. Soon he also loses the chance to think. It's a bit of a blur, a rush of adrenaline; it's the accomplishment of a year of hard work. He feels so proud, handing out signatures to people and being screamed at by strangers. It's a rush, really.

Even when they watch the movie, he can't find peace. Left of him, Adam keeps poking him before poking at the screen excitedly. To his right sits Martin, talking about something to Richard next to him. They were jostled into their seats, which explains why his usual movie buddy sits on the far end of the row instead of in Martin's spot - figuratively speaking, of course; they've all got decent middle spots.

Though he supposes he's glad. He doesn't want to think of Aidan and Richard in a dark theatre, seated next to each other.

It's at the end, half an hour into the after party, that Dean finds the restroom and finally takes a deep breath.

Richard straightens from the sink. His hands are still dripping wet when he stares at him through the mirror.

"Hey," Dean says coolly, "Crazy night, right?"

What he thinks is, shit, shit, why is he here?!

"Ah," Richard blinks, "Yes."

It's all a little too awkward, too strained. For such a glorious night, Richard ought to act lighter. Instead he looks like he's just heard his mother is in the hospital, or something.

Dean nods and leans against the door, conveniently blocking the way out.

"You know."

"What?"

Richard's a fucking deer in headlights, Dean groans. Gods, he's supposed to be an actor, but Dean can read him like a book. "You know," he repeats, before quickly checking if nobody's taken up one of the booths. That'd be awkward. Luckily, they're all unoccupied. "Did Aidan tell you?"

Richard swallows. He shakes his head.

Needless to say, this night is turning out different than both of them anticipated. Dean for one could have waited a few days before initiating this conversation. His words simply spill though, like they tend to do, and he might as well get it over with now.

The silence stings.

Dean should probably not expect this now, but he can't help but feel his heart twinge. It's not fair on Richard, he knows, to drop this on him right now. In the end, he sighs and steps aside.

"Sorry, mate. I'm in the way. Don't want to keep you here if you want to go."

When Richard hesitantly advances, nods apologetically and leaves, he has his answer.

Dean stays in the restroom for five more minutes. He's a grown man. He doesn't cry. He does feel very fucking bitter though, and nobody out there is going to see him while he still has the urgency to burn everything to the ground with snide remarks.

"Getting out of here soon," he messages Aidan, who's probably having the time of his life right now, and who most certainly isn't looking forward to hearing this, but whom he needs to talk to anyway. "Hotel room's got a mini bar, how about it?"

He doesn't know how, but somehow Aidan figures out he's in the men's room and finds him there, a minute later.


	9. Aidan

It's five in the morning when Aidan wakes up from a nap against the headboard. He groans. His head's already hurting, and it's too early by far to be awake, let alone crack open an eye. He feels the stiffness in his shoulders from his bad position already. Outside a new day is dawning. 5:12 in the morning, the alarm clock informs him.

Fucking jetlag.

Usually long trips like yesterday's make him sleep until late in the afternoon, at least on the first day, but it's probably the beers that have him up at such an ungodly hour. He thinks that part of it might also be that the headboard isn't meant for sleeping against like the boneless scarecrow he currently resembles. He reaches for a pillow to improve on that, before his sleep-wrecked mind does something decent and tells him he'd better just shift and lie down properly.

Next to him, Dean's out like a log. One arm bungles down the side of the bed, his face practically planted into a pillow. It's not the most endearing he's seen him in, but Aidan counts his wishes. He's glad enough they're on speaking terms again. Maybe he shouldn't have kept quiet when he assumed Dean didn't want to talk to him, and when everything with Richard went to hell. But that's easy for him to say now.

Frankly said, he lost his taste to text Dean because of the split with Richard - if you'd call it a split - and how that went down. He doesn't want to accidentally tell Dean that Richard knows, nor is he proud of the part where he cried during sex. Cried. What's wrong with him? It's not something he would tell Dean for fear of a bruised ego, and imagine all the questions he's got no answer to, yet somehow it's vital to him not sending any more texts.

Oh, and then there's the part where he fantasised about his mate during said sex. And it might, perhaps, be part of the reason for his unrestrained behaviour, which is probably why Richard took control so bloody lovingly.

These are all too heavy matters for the early morning, of course, and he wonders if he can get up very quietly and leave. The cast are all booked into the same hotel; it shouldn't be too hard to figure out where he put the key and head off to his own room, where he can toss around in bed all he wants and not be worried about the bile that occasionally rises in the back of his throat.

He forgot where he put it, but he's sure it ought to be in his jacket or something, if only he could be bothered to check.

His head spins decidedly less and the strain soon seeps out of his shoulders and neck when he lies down, but sleep still eludes Aidan. With one ear pressed against a pillow, he looks at his friend. The world isn't fair to Aidan. He might not always have been fair to the world, either, so he guesses he had that one coming. Still, he doesn't like the unexpected confusion.

It's a pity Richard - Thorin - and he stopped, because he could really go for a round right now. Knock some sense into him. It would be so easy to walk up to his room, demand entrance, and make it happen. Aidan doesn't like to sound cocky, but he knows he can. Even at the current hour.

He'd be using Richard's feelings and betraying Dean's though, so he doesn't. What they had is behind him. So it would have been really, really nice to see Richard and Dean work things out together. It would make Aidan feel admittedly less guilty for intruding on that by sleeping with Richard, too. That's really not the point. Dean deserves someone who can make him happy. Richard does, too. Not some guy who tramples on his feelings without realising he's got any. Yes, Aidan still feels terrible about that.

The image of them together got jammed. He hasn't been able to dislodge it from his head since. They just, well, they fit. In his head, he thinks that together Richard and Dean match perfection. If he feels a tad possessive, he pushes that to the back. He's had his chance.

Aidan frowns. He's had his chance for what, really? He doesn't think he loves Richard. Thorin, god, Thorin was great. But he didn't love Thorin either, if he's honest with himself. So a good lay, or several, that's all there was to it. The idea of having had his chance is bullocks; chances are for finding each other, for romance and all those other things he's ill acquainted with. They're not suitable for anything Aidan ever wanted from Richard.

Which, unfortunately, he still wants.

Dean shifts on the bed. Aidan's reminded of why they're sharing a bed again; it's a single room and he is not supposed to be sleeping in it by laws of there only being one bed. The floor next to the bed is littered with beer bottles and then bottles of other types of liquor, whatever was available at the time. The tab in the morning is going to kill their wallets.

In the end Aidan gives up going anywhere. He makes himself comfortable, drags as much of the blanket that he can manage to free over himself and tries to catch some sleep. His eyes drift and latch onto the closest thing without him realising it for a long time.

Richard's an idiot if he doesn't see it. Dean is beautiful.

 

*********

 

Mornings after events like these are always a little awkward.

Here they are, scattered around the hotel buffet, and every one of them looks groggy or otherwise sporting a massive hangover. Even James is sloped over the table, trying his best to get some more sleep, while Graham next to him pats him supportively on the back. Breakfast ends at nine thirty, of course, and some of them would like to have some eggs and bacon to wash off the alcohol while they still can, which is why the hall isn't entirely devoid.

Most of the people Aidan remembers from the premiere are still asleep though. He can't blame them, because he thinks that if he had the choice, he would have preferred having breakfast at one o'clock in the afternoon, too. He slips two boiled eggs into his bag for Dean later and ignores the hotel lady throwing him a foul look. He can't be the first one in the hotel's history to have done so, and besides, it's a five star hotel; good service is more important than two eggs more or less. He's sure they'll let it slip.

Richard looks dreadful. He's got a book he pretends to be reading from, but it's more for decorum than anything else; his eyes stare at the pages as if they're hieroglyphs - Aidan was going to say Greek, but he wouldn't put it past Richard to know Greek - and he doesn't turn the page once.

Aidan sits down opposite him. "Long night?" he asks.

Richard blinks up from his book - Aidan accredits him for the effort - and puts a worn leather bookmark between the pages before putting it away. "Oh," he says eloquently, "Hello Aidan. Not really."

"Trouble sleeping, then?" Aidan informs.

Richard sighs. He probably knows him too well, because he asks, "What do you want, Turner?"

The last name admittedly stings a little, coming from someone who puts so much emphasis on correcty addressing people.

Aidan thinks. He opens his mouth to speak, but changes his mind at the last time. The remnants of alcohol don't usually do much for his already impulsive mouth; that he manages to exact some form of control surprises him too.

This needs to be handled delicately.

"Dean's a good guy," he says in the end.

Richard looks like he's treading on thin ice. "Yes," he acknowledges with no small amount of hesitation.

"He's smart, and funny, and he cares a lot."

"...Yes."

"Why not him?"

Richard sits back in his seat. It's too early for a conversation like this; he can read it from the expression on his face. But Aidan's tired of waiting for the right time. They're here now, without Dean around, and god knows when that opportunity will hit them again. He wants answers.

Richard sighs. "You know why."

Ah. Right. Aidan winces.

"Still?"

Richard had five weeks to get used to the idea of Dean. How can this not have changed him? Dean wants him. He's a pretty good catch, if Aidan says so himself. That has to mean more to Richard than Aidan, who trampled his heart.

Something about his tone must have offended Richard, because he's suddenly annoyed and sharp. "Sorry if it's not to your liking."

Aidan runs his hands through his hair. Nobody pays him any notice; of course not, he probably reflects half the crowd in here. "Rich," he starts, "Please don't. I'm not here to talk about me, or what happened between us. I'm here because you turned down Dean, and I think you made the wrong choice."

"You can't expect me to apologise for wanting someone else when you're the one responsible for that," Richard says.

He's right, of course. If Aidan hadn't gone after Thorin and slept with him several times, Richard probably would have never fallen for him. But he can't take that back now. He wouldn't, anyway. Aidan smiles to himself. "I would do it all over again, if you must know." He doesn't look at Richard, because he doesn't want to see what he expects to see. Sadness. Regret, maybe. They're not words meant to soothe. "We had some good times, you can't deny that. But I can't give you more. Dean could." He looks up. "You probably don't want to hear this from me, but it'd mean a lot to me to see you happy. You of all people deserve that, Richard."

And Dean; Aidan can't bear to see Dean out of it. That argument won't win him any ground now however, so he keeps that to himself.

"Just think about it," is his last hopeful plea.

"Aidan..."

It's the helplessness in his eyes. Richard is as lost as he looks. And suddenly, a lump rises in Aidan's throat. If Richard and Dean do hook up, there'll be no more chance for a casual encounter. For all the knowledge that he can't give him his heart, and heaven knows he's tried to think of Richard that way during five long weeks of silence, for all that, Aidan still physically wants him.

If he's selfish, he can pretend it's more than want and snare Richard back to him. But while he could very much live with that himself, he can't bear to do something like that to Richard or Dean.

The only thought that pops up is twisted and more than a little cruel. The more he considers it however, the more he thinks it might just be the push in the right direction that they need. Besides. He himself determines how far he takes it.

"If you refuse to go after him," Aidan speaks, "I will."

Except then he surprises himself by how much he likes the idea. Aidan doesn't really want to seduce Dean. They're good friends, and seduction is not exactly looked upon as acceptable practice among good friends. But he'll be damned if it doesn't stir something inside of him.

Most likely he's not going to do a thing, anyway, because he can't afford to lose Dean the way he is slowly losing Richard. Nobody needs to know that though, least of all Richard. It might just be the right thing for them.

Richard stares at him as if he's just burnt a bible.

"You can't mean that."

"He's a good catch."

"A _catch?_ " Richard sounds appalled, "Is that how you think about me too? A good catch?"

Fuck, Aidan inwardly curses. He didn't plan for Richard to go down that road. He has to keep his cool though. Some good jealousy, mixed with the realisation that Richard has no chance with him either way - which is not entirely true, because Aidan thinks that if only Dean wasn't there and didn't want Richard like that, he thinks there might be a small chance that it could grow - that'll do the trick. They'll thank him later. Yes.

"You _are_ a good catch." Aidan sits back and observes him. He hates having to play the devil's advocate with friends, he really does. Especially between these two.

"You don't love him."

"Doesn't change the fact that he's a good catch."

" _He_ doesn't want you."

Aidan is getting Richard where he wants him, although the aftertaste is bitter.

"No, not yet he doesn't. But he's just been rejected. Who knows what might happen?"

"Christ. What happened to you, Aidan?"

Aidan wishes he knew the answer to that. He knows that by doing this, by saying these words, he's breaking Richard's heart. Dean really isn't the issue; he knows he can tell him to play along and he will, because Dean is easy like that and there'll be something good in it for him. But he doesn't want him to play along. He suddenly doesn't want them together, either. It means Aidan would be left behind. Yet it's the only outcome he can see where two out of three can be happy.

Doing the right thing fucking sucks.

"Tell me to back off."

"Back off," Richard growls.

Aidan breathes in deep.

"Room 501. You have until the end of the day."

When Richard hesitantly picks up his belongings, throws him one last look, and then leaves, he wishes to god he could have shut up.


	10. Dean

When he wakes up, the bed is empty.

Well, practically empty.

Beer bottles litter the floor and remind him of the headache that's bound to crash into him full force once he sits up and his pulse begins to properly quicken again. He can feel the tell-tale dull throb already layering up in his temple in thin veils. That's going to be a good one, he thinks.

There is enough space next to him to hold another person. There is none.

He really wishes he can forget about yesterday. It's more than a little embarrassing. Unfortunately, his memory hardly ever lapses even in the face of alcohol, which is why the recollection returns to him without invitation.

Richard features prominently in those memories, of course. Willingly or not, his actions are the prelude to everything else that's memorable about the night. He remembers some shitty sitcom with hilariously bad characters that had Aidan and him both in shambles until it hurt. Then there's that moment where they discovered they ran out of beer and decided to just go for whatever else was available, and Aidan had to go for orange juice of all things, which naturally turned out to be too rancid to stomach in combination with the lingering taste of beer and resulted in a quick bathroom check.

He remembers feeling like whatever happened to get them like this - which, he now supplies, was Richard subtly informing him that anything between Dean and him had little chance of getting anywhere - it was somehow worth it. Right now, that sounds strange to him. The rejection still stings. But he can definitely remember being completely at ease, watching Aidan roll around on the floor in a laughing fit, still clutching a bottle in his hand, while seated on the bed wrapped up in the duvet himself. He hasn't laughed like that for a long time.

There are things he can think of that would definitely have improved the night, but he counts his blessings. Richard's not going to happen. The only thing he can do is enjoy whatever else life throws in front of him and make the best of it.

He rolls over into the unoccupied spot. There's this thing about hotel room beds that makes him want to sleep diagonally if only to take up as much space as he possibly can. The spot he rolls into is cool to the touch, and littered with stolen sheets. It's nice.

It seems they forgot to close the curtains, which means that the warmth invading the room soon makes him feel sticky where he's burrowed under the covers. Dean eventually pushes them off to his waist.

Aidan, he assumes, must have left a few hours ago. Dean can't blame him; they've got a busy schedule ahead of them, and a good night's rest is bliss. Dean certainly hasn't had that good night's rest. It doesn't keep him from feeling born anew though. He stretches his toes slowly. Waking his body up with this kind of impending hangover has to be careful.

There's a knock on the door.

Dean looks over at the door. Odd. Didn't they put the do not disturb sign up last night, just for laughs and to see who'd comment? Oh well. Dean doesn't move. As long as he doesn't make a sound, he's sure they'll leave. He's not ready to face the outside world just yet. His eyes fall shut. Five more minutes.

Another knock brings him back to the land of the awake.

"Dean?"

Oh shit. All at once Dean rushes up and stumbles off the bed. He nearly trips over his dress pants on his way over.

When he opens the door, still stumbling, Richard stands there. He looks like he doesn't want to be on his doorstep at all, or maybe he's still deciding. The dreaded headache that he's tried to prevent hits him full force and he groans at the combined effect.

Of course, he thinks belatedly, of course he forgot to call out a 'wait a minute' and actually put those pants on the floor on. Now all he's got to keep his dignity is a pair of tight fitting boxers.

Dean winces. Charming. "Sorry. Hang on a minute." Without waiting for a reply he closes the door and gathers his clothes. His shirt is crumpled, but it'll do. Quickly he slips into the dress pants. When he opens the door again, and Richard's still there, Dean runs a hand through his hair and leans against the door. He grins. "Hi."

Richard shifts uneasily, which spikes his curiosity and soon has him feeling awkward as well. Dean's got no chance with Richard. He's cool with that. But then, Richard shouldn't be having second thoughts or doubts like it seems he's having now. There's no other way for him to be so uncomfortable.

The thing is, it does nothing for his acceptance of things. Hope wells up in his chest once again. He really can't use that now.

Oh, whatever. He pulls up his friendliest face and pretends nothing's wrong. "What can I do for you?"

"Can I come in?" Richard looks around as if he doesn't want to be seen there.

Dean shrugs. He's past caring, he tells himself. It helps to quiet his nerves and quench the hope. "Sure," and he steps aside. "So what brings you here? I'm not late for anything, am I?"

Richard notices the bottles on the floor immediately. "Had fun last night?" It comes out strained. But fuck, Dean has had enough of thinking about all the things the man could be implying, so he reaches for a glass and fills it with water, which he offers before downing it himself in one gulp when it's declined. The coolness feels good on his parched mouth.

"Count the bottles and divide the number by two. Well, roughly anyway. I think I remember Aidan spilling half a bottle of decent vodka. Anyway." He smiles up expectantly. It's time Richard told him why he's here.

"Can I try something?"

Well, isn't that an odd question? Curious, Dean tilts his head and nods. "Go on then."

When Richard leans in and kisses him, Dean short-circuits. It's nothing within his range of expectations, and he doesn't know what to do. At first it's alienating, like this isn't really happening to him. Why would it be? Richard turned him down just the night before. But tentatively the taller man pulls himself closer and the height difference becomes apparent only for a short while before he leans down and Dean reaches up, and then they fit perfectly.

From there on out, Dean takes back control. He parts his lips and allows further entrance. When that doesn't come, he claims it for himself. He presses forward, and Richard gives in; less than a minute later, he's got him pinned to the wall and ravishing that mouth while his hands cup his face to keep him there.

It's not fairy dust and rainbows. Instead it feels raw. Fleeting. It won't last, and it certainly feels like a mistake waiting to be revealed. Any time now, Richard is going to wake up and decide that this is not what he wants. Which is why Dean can't let go right now. He doesn't want to press his luck and slip his hands under the shirt, no matter how much he wants to, so he opts for leaving Richard breathless of kisses alone instead. Fingers stroke down the taller man's neck; they send shivers scintillating across hot skin. Dean nips at his bottom lip with a grin. He can't really grasp it yet.

He's got him.

He's fucking got him.

But the magic wears off too soon.

Isn't this supposed to make him feel warm inside? Sure, his lower regions are definitely feeling heated, there's no denying that. But, Dean pulls back at the realisation, that's all it is. He stares up in confusion. There's no fireworks, no spark to dowse him in fire.

Richard looks absolutely gorgeous, the way he's pushed up against the wall and looking down at him through lidded eyes. By all rights, there's a sight he's longed to see for quite some time now. He doesn't get why it doesn't do more for him.

Dean pulls away and sits down on the nearest chair. He breathes out. In the silent room, the sound jars. He wills himself to calm down.

"Shit," he says.

Richard's pride looks more than a little hurt. Guilt wells up in Dean's chest. Here Richard is, after months and months, and he's been kissing him and it should have been perfect. But it's not.

"Did Aidan put you up to this?"

The silence is answer enough. And it explains why he doesn't get any vibes from Richard's side, although it doesn't explain why he can't ignore that tiny detail in favour of his own needs. Here they are. They're pathetic, the both of them.

"I'm going to kill him."

"Please don't," Richard shakes his head, "This is as much my fault as it's his. I'm sorry."

They're few words, but full of meaning. Dean reads the message that's hidden between the lines with growing dread. He kicks the belt at his feet away from him. "It's him you want," he states. The thought is sickening. Richard came to him, while he wants Aidan instead. He doesn't know whether to feel insulted or hurt, and it ends up being a mixture of both. What a mess they're both in. If this is a joke on Aidan's side, it's poorly timed and even worse executed.

Why?" Dean needs to know.

Richard looks away. He's not intent on speaking, and the words feel forced rather than natural. "I can't have him. I suppose I wanted to see if I could make it work with you." He slides down the wall and buries his head in his hands. "God, saying it like that makes me sound like such an asshole. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it like that. You're a great guy, Dean. I would love for it to be you."

"But it's Aidan."

Aidan.

Dean can't bear the thought of Aidan's hands on Richard.

Or maybe it's Richard's hands on Aidan that are wrong.

Dean sits stunned.

He did not just think that.

He did though; still does. Worse, now that the flood gates have been opened, along come the many imaginations of Aidan and those cursed words of him.

_He's a beast, Dean._

Richard's not supposed to be. Thorin is. Thorin, whom Aidan chased, which most likely caused Richard to fall for him. But regardless of whether it's Thorin or Richard, the fact remains that Aidan's been on the receiving side of either or both of them, has wanted that, and now that _that_ image is burned into Dean's retina, he doesn't know if he can ever look at him the same again.

He doesn't like the thought of Richard reaching completion through Aidan's adept fingers, but it's with sudden clarity that he realises that it's not what Aidan had that's been bothering him for a while.

It's that which Richard had.

"Huh," he says humourlessly to himself and stares at nothing in particular ahead of him.

Somewhere on the wall, a clock ticks away seconds until they're minutes.

When he turns to Richard again, Richard's eyes are filled with a mix of incomprehension and regret. He doesn't understand anything. Of course he doesn't. Dean can barely grasp it himself.

"Did you and Aidan ever...?" he wonders, "I mean, not Thorin, but you?"

Richard quietly nods his head, which sends Dean into a blank numbness. It does keep getting better and better. "Twice. Neither by Aidan's choice. The second one was the last time before we quit. It wasn't... it wasn't nice."

"Did he turn you down?" The words are probably a little callous, but Dean feels considerably numb to the world right now.

"We both made the choice to end it."

When Richard leaves it at that, Dean can live with not knowing. He's not sure whether he wants to know more either way. He contemplates asking if Richard still wants Aidan. But he doesn't want to know the answer to that either, like he realises he doesn't want to know a lot of things right now, so he keeps still.

It's quiet for another few long seconds before he sighs.

"I need time to figure out some things."

"Of course," Richard acknowledges the cloaked request to leave. He gets up, straightens his shirt and looks around the room a last time. The bottles are still there. It's a gigantic mess, but nothing is as wretched as how the two of them feel right now. Then he's gone.

Dean breathes in deeply.

It'd be really nice - really, really nice - if he could stop feeling like a satellite in helpless orbit around Richard and Aidan and the fucked-up things they do to each other, if only for a while.

All he knows is that he loathes his recently adjusted choice already.

 

*********

 

They don't talk.

Aidan tries to seek out his company whenever he can, like how he's always done. It's a natural thing to do for him.

Thank goodness Dean is skilled at avoiding people he really doesn't want to talk to.

When they're picked up for the airport, he sits down in the car next to Richard because it's an easy way to ward off his best mate. He doesn't offer the person in question next to him an explanation, while there probably ought to be one. They kissed only an hour ago, and then had a hell of a painful talk. It makes more sense for him to avoid Richard. Instead Dean sits next to him and smiles apologetically.

But Aidan backs off, and that's what matters.

The airplane proves to be more difficult, because it's a confined space and there are only so many hours he can pretend to be sleeping before it becomes a little fake around the edges. Once, when he walks down the aisle to the toilets, Aidan corners him and asks him if he's alright.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Dean asks, and again looks up Richard's company for the remainder of the time.

They continue like that for two days. But then they're in Tokyo, where the hotel they're in is filled to the brim with hysterical fans dressed up in costume and they need to be extra careful of what they say, and it's there of all places that his control over the situation slips.

When Dean closes the door of his hotel room behind him and flips on the lights, Aidan is there. His hands hang a bit limply by his side, standing before a wall of glass with a gorgeous nightscape view behind him that Dean can't suddenly care less about, and the smile on his face is not full.

He looks defeated, which is why Dean doesn't get out of the room at once.

"Are you seeing him?" Aidan asks.

"Christ, Aid, what are you doing here?"

"Are you?"

"Who?"

"Richard."

Whatever pity he had, it's gone. It's going to be that kind of conversation, then. "What concern is it of yours?"

Aidan winces. Dean's reminded of all the ways in which he's being unfair. They're supposed to be close friends, Aidan and him. They're supposed to share these kinds of things. But for now Dean can't bear to look at him and think about all the things he's done.

"It's not, I guess." Aidan looks anywhere but at him. He looks as uneasy as he probably feels.

"You sent him to my door."

Aidan bites his lip. "I did."

"Well, then. What is it you want?"

"I don't know." The tone in Aidan's voice becomes quieter. "Did I do something wrong? You've been going out of your way to avoid me. You won't return my messages even if we're in the same room and I saw you just checking your phone. If there's something, then please, because I don't know what I've done to make you act this way."

"He kissed me."

Aidan silences. Dean does, too. He didn't expect he'd ever use that as leverage. He just did.

"That's... good," Aidan's small voice breaks, "right?"

That's it for Dean. He throws his keycard on the table and his jacket over the adjoining chair. When he advances on Aidan, the Irishman takes a step back.

"He kissed me," he darkly says, "Because you said so. It's you he wants. There was no fucking spark whatsoever."

What he doesn't add, but which makes all the difference, is that he fears how - now that he's figured out it's not Richard for him, but Aidan - he's doomed to meet the same fate. Dean will be used, and rejected, and he will end up with a broken heart, kissing someone else and hoping he can be happy with that person because Aidan wants it so.

And if he doesn't tell, which is always an option too, then he'll be forced to sit at the sideline when Aidan does this to someone else, and he won't be able to stop thinking about someone else's hands on him.

Aidan's a great friend, don't get him wrong, but he doesn't think he can handle being treated the way Aidan has been treating Richard. It's like everything that Richard must be feeling, all the anger and rejection, is resonated within himself.

It's not Aidan's fault, the rational part of his mind tells him; deep down Dean has only fond memories of the time spent in Aidan's company. But he blames him for every way he's ever touched Richard, because it hurts.

It hurts, when they both keep gravitating towards and pushing away from each other, and there's no space for _him_.

"I thought if he tried..." Aidan whispers. He wilts under Dean's gaze.

"That what, he could start to want me? How about you tried instead? You didn't have to drag me into this if you'd just opened up to him a little more."

Aidan looks like he's about to cry. He takes a step further back. Part of Dean screams that he doesn't want this, he doesn't ever want to make him sad. The other part takes grave satisfaction in the confrontation.

"I tried," Aidan says.

"Well, you should have tried harder."

"I wanted you to be happy."

"Is this a happy face you're seeing, Aidan?"

"Dean, please."

"Please, what? God, look at you two, toying around with people's hearts like it's all a game. You two fucking deserve each other."

That finally rubs Aidan the wrong way. "And just what's that supposed to mean?" he fires back. "Am I supposed to just pretend I like someone that I don't? I'm not proud of what I did, but that's between me and him. Who are you, Dean, to lecture me on what I should and should not do with Richard?"

Nobody, Dean thinks. He's nobody. But why then does Aidan look so hopeful?

"He's my friend," he bites back.

Aidan's arms fall back against his sides. They barely started, but already he's defeated. Wide eyes stare at him. "Well," he looks like he's having trouble breathing, "If that's your argument, it's nice to know where I stand." One step back leads to another, and then he's pushing past him to the door. All life has left him. Only the urgency to flee remains.

When Dean realises what he's just insinuated and how he's just crossed every boundary with that single remark, he hates himself.

"Aidan, wait," he pleads.

Aidan doesn't.

But if he doesn't fix this now, he doesn't know how he ever will.

"I can't bear to end up like Richard," Dean blurts out, "It terrifies me."

Aidan stops in his track.

"What?" he whispers.

"Please don't let me end up like him."


	11. Richard

It's nearing Christmas. On the Southern hemisphere, that means there's no snow and no temperatures below zero. There's tons of decorations in the shops that should get the feeling across though, and Christmas trees in abundance.

But he misses the ice rink and the snow crystal and icicle decorations.

Richard also misses family.

That's the other part of Christmas that's off. It's that one holiday in the year that's about family and loved ones. And if he doesn't have much faith in commercial messages telling him to buy loads of stuff and empty his wallet for the greater good, the fact remains that everyone keeps asking him if he's going to go home and spend Christmas Eve with someone special. And really, there have been plenty of Christmases spent without a special someone by his side; answering that question should not be a big deal to Richard.

Now, staring into a candy cane and mistletoe-decorated shop on his way to some or other interview, he knows he wants to spend it with someone, he longs to spend it with that one, and there's not a chance in the world that he will.

Richard wonders if Aidan went after Dean in the end like he said he would. Richard did do something about it, and he did give it a try. He did. Genuinely, if it could have been Dean, that would have been great. At least it'd cut all the insecurity short, and Dean's not a bad choice. The result of him doing something about it unfortunately turned out so disastrous that since then, Richard's made a pact never to kiss anyone he wants to 'give a try' again. Unless he really wants to be with the person. And thinks he's got a shot.

That's how all this mess with Aidan started in the first place. Now look at him. He's in over his head, and he keeps doing things he doesn't want to do for the sake of someone who's got his heart and has no clue what he's doing with it.

And Richard may have seen a lot of years and a lot of loves and ought to know how to handle that kind of trouble by now, but this is Aidan, and Aidan throws all his logic out the window and pushes him away - after finding out about Dean, at least - and makes him only want it more.

He hasn't seen the both of them for a couple of days now.

He supposes he could call it peaceful.

It's kind of that he misses the Irish whirlwind though, and he'd like to talk to Dean properly to sort all of this out.

His phone buzzes.

"Aren't you looking glum?"

Speak of the devil.

Richard looks around. He doesn't see anyone he knows. Once again he glances at the screen, and tries to see if he can find him. It's a fairly quiet street - he doesn't think heading down a shopping arcade with the movie just being released into cinemas is a wise decision - so if someone's there, he should be able to spot him.

"Where are you?" he returns.

"I guessed right, didn't I?" Aidan is probably grinning on the receiving side of the message.

Is he truly that predictable?

Richard frowns and pockets the phone again. If that's all Aidan texted him for, it's probably not a wise decision to keep responding. But three minutes later, his phone goes off again.

"Sorry, sorry. How are you, Rich?"

Yes, Aidan definitely needs him for something. But, because it's nice to communicate with him again and it's probably the season softening him up, he indulges him.

"Good. I've got an interview in half an hour, then going for drinks with Graham and Martin. You?"

"That's great. You think you can spare me half an hour tonight?"

Ah, and there it is. Richard thinks about that for too long to be natural during text messages. He's never said he's a natural at cropping complicated messages into 160 characters without butchering the language like everyone else seems intent on doing. There's too much for him to say, except he thinks that people who keep jotting down message after message after message are really bothersome and god, he wouldn't want to be one of them. So he's got an excuse.

"Sure," his literary response comes far too late, "What time and where?"

It must be about something big, if Aidan wants to properly book him instead of what he always does, which is just show up and drag the person he needs off. Usually that's Dean, but Richard's no stranger to the phenomenon either.

"Room 230, 11:30?"

Oh. A hotel appointment. Not just outside the pub or something else otherwise casual. And suddenly it feels awkward. A hotel appointment. Richard never meets people in hotel rooms.

All of it is too suspicious, which leads to him contemplating the half an hour window. No, even if it's what his mind momentarily supplies - foolishly hopes for - half an hour is too short for all the explaining Aidan would have to do first.

He isn't going to fall for that one again that easily.

Curiosity piqued either way, he shrugs it off. What the hell. "See you then."

Of course, it's then that his mind points out a small fun fact that might just change everything.

He'll have to ask him tonight.

It's odd how the tiny hint of a conversation suddenly makes the Christmas atrocity remotely bearable.

 

*********

 

Naturally, Richard waits in front of a closed door, five minutes too late because he kept thinking things over and deciding whether or not this was a good idea, and it takes him a good minute to place the first knock.

Who is he kidding though; it's not the lair of something wicked and his own room is only one floor down. If the elevator's not fast enough on his escape route, he can always take the stairs.

When Aidan opens up and offers him a smile - a good-natured, proper smile - Richard melts anyway, because he hasn't seen that smile for a while now and it's good to see him like that. Not threatening, or lustful, or otherwise emotionally unstable. If the smile has a few nervous snatches that stick out, well, he thinks that's only normal. "Hey."

"Hey," Aidan steps aside, "Come in. Can I get you anything?"

The formality is definitely out of place.

Richard goes for a simple glass of water.

God, he missed just being around him. Not in the fucking-his-brains-out way, or anything. That was nice too, sure, but he digresses and he realises only now that if they're ever going to be friends again, he really needs to get a hold of those stray thoughts.

While Aidan sits himself down on the bed cross-legged, Richard reaches for a chair. This is going to be one hard conversation. He knows it by the way a stronger drink isn't insisted upon and there's no TV or other means of distraction playing in the background. "You wanted to see me?"

Aidan fumbles. There goes his easy smile, and Richard thinks, _what have you gotten myself into, you fool?_

"Uh," the man starts, looking at his hands, "I just, well, I just want to say in advance, sorry that I'm talking about this with you, but you're the only one I can think of to share this with, and I really need some advice."

Richard blinks. "Why not Dean?" Isn't Dean supposed to be the one he shares everything with? They certainly always have those little inside jokes they grin about, that nobody else gets.

"It's about Dean?" Aidan smiles apologetically.

Right. Right.

This'll be that conversation where they talk about the kiss between him and Dean.

It's a four star hotel. Maybe, if he sends a quick text message to some number, he can send for the elevator from a distance. Who knows?

Except Aidan sits strategically between him and the door.

"Go on," Richard bites the inside of his cheek. Best get it over with, he thinks. Half an hour suddenly sounds like an eternity, but maybe, if he goes through the motions fast enough, they can crop it short.

"Shit. Well. Promise me you won't be mad at me?"

Oh, great.

"I'm not promising anything." Because god no, he's not making that kind of promise to Aidan.

Aidan titters. He leans back on his hands and nods. "Fair enough, I suppose. You said you kissed him, right?"

"Yes."

"What happened, exactly?"

Richard shrugs. What's there to tell? And why should he tell Aidan, anyway? That's private business.

The simple "Please," of course tips him over, and he relays how he asked for permission, and kissed. It was a nice kiss. A little odd, and not Aidan - he doesn't say that - but nice nonetheless. But then Dean asked him if Aidan put him up to it, and seemed to be going through some process of sorts, and then asked him to leave.

"That's all," Richard says, because he's not going to tell Aidan about those details like warmth, sensation and scent and all those things that Richard actually does remember from kisses. Nor is he going to tell that Dean was different from Aidan, and yet exactly the same when it came to demands.

"Dean said he likes me," Aidan guns the bullet and rips the last remnants of calm in Richard into shreds.

At least Aidan looks properly freaked out about that, too.

"What am I supposed to do?" he mumbles. His eyes desperately bore into Richard, like he knows all the answers.

"Do you like him?" Richard fears the answer.

"Well, yes. Like that, though? I don't know, Rich. It's like it was with you. I feel like I could be, but there's something holding me back. But he's one of my best mates. What do I even tell him?"

It's like it was with him. Richard feels cold inside. He's not going through that again, nor is he going to see the disaster strike somewhere else if he can help it.

"Don't you dare put him through what you had me go through, Aidan. Figure it out, then tell him your decision."

Aidan takes a deep breath. It's not helping. But right now, he's not going to be mister nice guy, even if that means treading on Aidan's emotions. If the man feels guilt, then all the better. He should.

"Did you sleep with him?"

The shake of a head is at least a start.

"Aid, why are you telling me this?"

Aidan shrugs.

Richard groans. He sits back in his chair and taps his empty glass on the table. Any leftover Christmas spirit is now definitely killed. He looks at the door, but Aidan looks so broken that he doesn't want to leave him here either, even if he's got no qualms about cursing him a thousand times over.

"I should tell you why I'm here," he starts. It takes some control to slow down his words until they're calm and soothing; it's a bit of a natural talent of him, but usually he really is that calm, and not so stressed out of his wits as he is now. "I'm well aware that Dean rejected me. You know you're my first choice, and we both know that Dean being interested in me got in the way. But Dean is no longer in the way."

He leaves it there, because it's not hard to fill in the blanks, and it's a lot more painful to actually say it out loud. He doesn't need to. Aidan does it for him.

"You came here for me."

Richard acquiesces with a nod.

"But," Aidan frowns, "I can't love you."

"Could you want me?"

Aidan stares. Richard returns it. He's hardly ever this straightforward, and when he is, he usually feels like a different person inside. Richard goes for subtleties in life, and flowing around obstacles in a graceful way, instead of smashing it to pieces. He's serious though, and bending around the subject will only get him hurt.

"I do," he whispers.

Richard smiles sadly. "Then I wish you didn't just tell me about Dean."

The moral barrier that's been on Aidan's shoulders for so long is now on him; if he persuades Aidan, he will hurt a good friend.

God, how he wishes he didn't hear it. Because he would be in that bed, Thorin or any which way Aidan would have him, and it would have been great.

"How about him?" he wonders, "Could you love him?"

Aidan pulls his legs up on the bed. He looks small now; vulnerable. Nothing about him gives away that he's been the one causing chaos between the three of them, orchestrating this enormous mockery of what's supposed to be a beautiful thing. "Please don't be offended, but I think you'd be in the way."

Somehow, that's the biggest relief Richard's felt in months.

He's not going to be noble and take himself out of the picture for everyone else's sake when Aidan's just gone and said that.

"Could you want him?" the second question needs asking.

At that, Aidan falls back on the bed. He's quite obviously subjected to internal struggle, because he doesn't reply at once and when he does open his mouth, he pulls back the words on the tip of his tongue and tosses about. At last, he covers his face with his hands and mutters out, "I've thought of you together."

The Aidan of a few months back would have said that with a tease in his voice and a promise dripping from every syllable, and damn, it would have pulled him in like a moth. That effect's not entirely lost when it comes out shamefully and quiet. Heat pools in Richard's chest, before spreading through his veins and centring further down. All the while, he's speechless.

"Sorry," Aidan mutters.

He's not equipped to deal with this situation. He's not. Of all the things, that admission is not on his list of expected things - and with Aidan, that list is pretty damned long.

Around him, all is quiet. Aidan shuffles back into a sitting position after a while. He doesn't look at him at first, toying with his phone and easing out the twisted side seam of his jeans. At last he scrapes his throat, and Richard must have been off in his own world, because when he looks up, time catches up with him.

He doesn't know what to say.

"Talk to me," Aidan whispers.

Richard sits back and lets his head fall back. The chair's not high enough to support him, but the wall behind it will do. His eyes latch onto the form on the bed.

If there's a chance, he doesn't ever want to let that go.

Richard's about to do the most irresponsible thing - he can say that without a doubt - in his life.

He knows it, and he does it anyway.

"Could you want both of us?"

When half a minute later he receives his tentative answer, his pulse just about stops in his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ack, sorry for any spelling errors; I beta-ed this like crazy, because I'll be at work again tomorrow and I wanted to give you guys at least something nice before you'll have to wait a couple of days again. Thanks so much, everyone, for reading and letting me know what you think; you probably don't realise how many times you've given me awesome ideas to work with, and how thankful I am for it.


	12. Aidan

The world stops being linear, the moment the words are out.

There's no longer simply the part where he wonders if he should or shouldn't. It's no longer a matter of if or if not. Instead everything bursts out into a mosaic of actions and consequences, colours and shades, and there are so many things to choose from, so many things to do.

He knows it's not going to be easy.

Then again, aside from the times when Aidan lured Thorin in - which, on the grand scale of things, is but a speck - nothing so far between them has been easy. It feels like natural procession, something that was bound to happen eventually; though they're heading into uncharted territory nonetheless and Aidan could never have guessed that one day things would bring him here.

Richard sits stunned. "I didn't expect you to say yes," he admits quietly; like any louder will shatter this bubble of confusion and uncertainty. Aidan thinks it's a good bubble. It may be made of uncomfortable things, but with determination and care, it will be precious in time.

"Are you backing out?" he asks.

Myriads of thoughts cross Richard's features. It's funny how Aidan never really paid attention to that because he was always busy looking for other things, and the pages of the book he's reading turn out to contain the most complicated, intricate patterns.

When he shakes no, the book's not at its end by far; instead it's as if it's being rewritten on the spot. "But there'll have to be rules," Richard says.

"Dean has to agree," Aidan supplies.

"And we're taking things slow," Richard adds.

Aidan pulls a face, because he's never been one for going slow. Richard sees it and quietly laughs; it's deep and kind, and the tension in the room evaporates just a little. He shakes his head. "You don't seriously expect me to do this thing if we don't create an equal balance first."

"Equal balance?"

There are so many things unhinged about this that it's hard to pinpoint what exactly Richard's referring to. The wrong move, and their card house will fall to the ground. Aidan leans forward with elbows on his knees. His world is shifting around him. In front of him now sits someone he could want, and could have. Someone he does want, and will have, his mind corrects him. Part of him is excited; the other part is scared out of his mind.

Aidan likes to do things impulsively, because that way, he never has to worry about the what-if's. Which means he ends up with messed up situations he could have prevented all the time, but he doesn't usually chicken out.

"Did you kiss him yet?"

Aidan shakes his head.

"Well. Equal footing."

"You want us to kiss?"

Richard's not freaking out, Aidan notices. His eyes are fairly wide and wild, so the thought of running has probably crossed his mind. Yet he's here, and containing it well. He's glad for that; Aidan really needs a voice of reason right now. It calms him down.

Lips purse though, and Richard shrugs helplessly. "Not really. Not yet. But if we're going to do this, I'd rather get used to that first rather than have it happen when the damage will be worse."

Which means, Aidan realises, that Richard will be there when they kiss. Maybe not the first time, but definitely soon. That, or he can't get used to it. Oddly, it injects an unhealthy amount of stage fright into his already shot nerves. He's an actor, for god's sake. He's done on-screen kisses; he rather likes doing them, in fact. They weren't with Dean though, nor with Richard, and there are feelings at stake now that change it all.

Aidan would love to see Richard and Dean kiss. It's completely unfair that they can't just do that instead. It happened, though he hasn't seen it. His lips curve into a smile.

"You and him too."

Richard nods. He gives a small smile. "Isn't this awkward."

"I know," Aidan grins. He falls back on the bed once again. It's strange to be having this conversation, yet feel elated. Gates have been unsealed and suddenly everything's permitted. Or well, not _everything_ just yet, but it feels that way. A warm feeling resides in his chest. "Better not get ahead of ourselves, right?" he shakes his head, "Dean needs to be on board before we discuss how we're going to share him."

Finally, _finally_ , Richard flushes. He thought it'd never happen.

"Right," the man says, his voice weak.

"I wish I could kiss you right now," Aidan throws out into the room.

He does want that. How wonderful it would be to have him on top of himself, flush against too plush bed sheets and with all the shackles that held them back now gone. Aidan would tangle his hands into neat hair and ruin it, and kiss him until Richard was past caring. He could do that for hours.

He could have Richard just to himself. Except it won't be just to himself. God, he's got no clue how to share a person with someone else. What if Richard and Dean decide they like each other better and leave him behind?

Despite the way they've just been discussing the logistics of a threesome - is this even going to be a relationship, or just a physical thing? Because Aidan would really like to try the first if the question wasn't too awkward to ask - when he snaps out of it, the room is eerily silent in the wake of that confession.

Richard says, "Aidan..."

"... I said that out loud, didn't I?"

The nod confirms it.

"If we do that now, and Dean's not on board..."

Aidan groans. "I know," and he does, know it, because it's the reason why he didn't get up from the bed and demand the kiss from Richard himself, "We'd hurt him. If he's not in, the deal's off. I'm thinking all these things, but if he doesn't say yes, none of it will happen. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?"

In the chair - it feels like Richard's deliberately staying seated there and creating space between them for not running the risk of them doing something foolish - Richard laughs. It's a mixture of frustration and mirth; it suits him.

"I swear, if the deal's off, you owe me at least that kiss."

When he looks up at Richard at those words through hooded eyes, he feels something dark creep back into his system. It's something he hasn't felt for some time now; something that only used to be directed at Thorin before, but is now meant for Richard. "The deal won't be off. As long as it goes through, I get to take as many kisses from you as I want."

The challenge is accepted when Richard replies with a hitherto unexpected seduction in his voice, "Oh, the things I will do to you."

For a moment Aidan entirely forgets that nothing of this is decided yet. Dean can still back out. It wouldn't be odd for him to do so, which means their chances of actually doing everything they're talking about right now are still fairly slim. For a moment, he forgets; for that moment, Thorin and Richard are one and he's never wanted them so badly before.

"We need to tell him," his voice betrays his desire.

"Soon," Richard concedes.

"I need you to go now, Rich. I swear, if you don't..."

"Soon," the other urges.

"Very soon," Aidan nods resolutely. He smiles up once at Richard when he gets up and passes him by, pausing next to the bed, but shakes his head quickly before they do something stupid like kiss goodnight.

The door shuts with a liberating click. The restraints finally forgotten, Aidan lets himself fall back into the pillows once over. Pleasant shivers run across his skin when he stares up at the expensive light on the ceiling, seeing right past it, and he thinks about it all.

Richard proposed this.

Richard, of all people.

It looks like he needs to adjust how he sees him, because the image in his head turns out to be all wrong. Richard's supposed to be the guy who brings you flowers, who's considerate and who might or might not have a different side when he's acting, but who is also incredibly self-conscious and the things he does in real life. You couldn't find a better charity poster boy.

And yet he's not backed out.

What's stranger is that suddenly Aidan wants him again. Or, rather, he wants _him_ now. Richard, not Thorin. But isn't that strange? And it's not fake, it's not a fluke or something he thinks he'll run out of tomorrow. It's not exactly love - he never promised love, though that doesn't mean he doesn't want it - but it's strong.

And then there'll be Dean.

And the world stands or falls with his decision.

But if only it would be a yes...

 

*********

 

A hand reaches out from under the blankets at the buzzing of the alarm clock.

Right. Right. Another day of promotions ahead of him. Aidan groans and hits snooze, like he's done for the past two times his alarm went off. It's okay with his schedule; he calculates at least three snoozes into his alarm without being late.

An envelope blinks in the top left corner of his screen.

"Good morning." Richard.

Sent at five in the morning.

Naturally, because when he moves to the next message, it reads, "Can't sleep, hope I don't wake you up."

Aidan stares at his phone.

He knew yesterday that the world was going to change; he just didn't expect it to happen so soon. Now, he doesn't know what to say. With Richard in the room, it wasn't half as awkward as it's now. He's afraid to even send a message back, let alone mention anything about their agreement. They're grown men, for crying out loud. Simple text messages should not scare him like that.

Today.

If it's not today, he knows the nervousness will get the best of him and it will be never.

If he doesn't do this today, then he'll have himself to blame.

"Come over," he sends to Dean. Just that; he's afraid to send anything more.

He's barely awake, but his resolve weakens by the minute. And he doesn't want it to go to waste, just because he was afraid to man up. Which is what he's doing right now. Punching out his snooze alarm, he sits up and runs a hand through his hair.

Assuming Dean to be at breakfast or still asleep, he's not ready when a knock on the door pulls him out of his thoughts.

That's way too early.

"Dean, hi!" he smiles so fucking nervously, and lets him in. Of course Dean knows something's up. Rather than being angry or confused though, it looks like he's mostly worried.

"Are you okay?" he asks, "You message sounded urgent." One quick look-over, and he pulls Aidan in by the shoulders and looks up at him. "Something's the matter, isn't it?"

Great, now he's got Dean's worried about him.

Richard should be here. But he's not, and his message lies unreplied on his pillow, and Aidan does the only way in which he knows he can communicate.

He pulls Dean in for a kiss.

It's really a gentle one, because it needs to be; it tastes like so much more that he has to restrain himself from deepening it. He feels he can't do that to Richard, either. So it's too soon when he pulls away, leaving Dean staring up in confusion. A small smile is already blooming there. Aidan quickly presses his fingers loosely against Dean's lips and shakes his head. No. Not yet the victory smile. It isn't what it seems.

"I'm going to ask you something," he says, "And I need you to have an open mind about it."

The small smile makes room for confusion. "Okay," Dean laughs it off, uncomfortably.

Aidan is now sure that he should have waited. He's awake, that's no longer an issue, but it might be rushed, and what if Richard is having second thoughts and he doesn't even know, because he went too fast?

Oh, fuck it. If Richard's having second thoughts, he'll just have to sway him back to their side. He's the one who suggested this; Aidan's sure that he could be convinced again. At least Richard's intentions towards him have always been clear enough.

"You liked Richard before, right?" he starts out for decency's sake, not to throw him into the deep end straight away.

"Aid, that's... It's too early for that now. You're not even properly up."

No doubt he's referring to Aidan not yet wearing more than pyjama bottoms. Right, right.

"I didn't expect you to make it here so soon," Aidan grins.

"Clearly not," and then Dean's Dean again and smiling along, hands in the pockets of his jeans. "So, that kiss..."

Aidan winces. "Open mind."

"Right."

They're silent for a long time.

"Mind telling me what the open mind's for? Apart from it having to do with Richard?"

Aidan fumbles.

Dean groans. "Oh god, Aid, what did you do this time?"

He stares. Why is it that Dean immediately assumes he's done something stupid again? "I talked to him!" he defends himself, "Not like that!" Except, he berates himself as his stomach rumbles and he jolts at the snooze going off once again, terrible as Aidan is at switching it off properly when still sleep drunk, 'not like that' is not the best choice to be using here.

Thankfully, Dean is pleasantly surprised when it turns out not to be his worst fear. "I see. What about?" he wants to know.

"You."

"Okay." Nobody likes hearing someone's been talking about you, and Dean's no exception; especially not as straightforward as Aidan puts it. He shifts awkwardly, but he remains standing. Aidan has to give it to him; he knows how to look at ease in the worst of situations, even if he knows him long enough now to know that he's not comfortable right now. At all. "You didn't accidentally mention to him he's got a competitor, did you?" he tries to lighten up the mood.

But Aidan slinks back and says, tentatively, "I wouldn't exactly call it a competitor."

Well, and that definitely sends the cogs in Dean's head grinding. "You did," he stares, hurt. "I told you I wasn't going to end up like him. I gave you time. Don't do this to me, Aidan. Don't you dare."

This is not going to be one of _those_ conversations, he tells himself. He's had enough of those to last him a few years, and he's weary of the constant rope pulling going on. Whatever he does, it's never right. But he can't help but want to calm Dean down. It's Dean. If it doesn't work out, he's going to do his very best to at least salvage their friendship.

"He wants me," he tries to reason, but desperation is creeping into his voice. Dean needs to see. "I talked to him, because he has the right to know. And I needed his opinion. I never started something with him because you were there. I mean, I haven't been interested in him like that, I admit, but I wanted him. It could have happened. I didn't choose him then because of you. You deserved him a lot more than I did."

When he chews on his lip and looks up, Dean doesn't look happy. He's just standing there, lost, like this is a declaration of love directed at someone else.

"I didn't know what I was doing, and you know how I hurt him. You said you didn't want to end up like him, but the only way I can do that is by not being with you at all. He's there, and he wants me. And he deserves a shot at happiness a great deal more than I do too, Dean."

"You're turning me down," Dean states.

Fuck. No.

Aidan racks his mind. He's been going on and on about Richard. Of course Dean would think so. But, lost at how to make it better, he just starts talking without a direction to take.

"No, I'm not. You're great. Christ, Dean, if you think I haven't thought about you like that, you're more wrong than you know. Do you think I liked realising you wanted him? We're supposed to be friends, but I swear, when you sprung that on me..."

It's only then that it finally dawns on him why, that night that seems like a lifetime ago, he cried. Aidan sits silenced as he goes over the thought again and again, surprised.

Dean's voice cracks. "Bottom line?"

Aidan looks up at him powerlessly. He doesn't know how else to say this.

"I want you both."

Opposite him, Dean sits down on the bed. He lets go of a deep breath. "You said something like that before. Thorin and you, Richard and me."

"This isn't about Thorin anymore," Aidan shakes his head, "And I'm dead serious. I can't choose. One of us is always going to be in the way. It has to be the three of us, or no one."

The more he hears the words come out of his mouth, the less hope he has that all of this will be fine. Somewhere on the bed, his phone buzzes. It's not the snooze, so he suspects it's Richard. He can't talk to him right now; not unless he wants to thoroughly screw things up with Dean.

"You don't need to give me an answer right away," he tries, "It's a lot to take in, I know. I can't promise you it'll be easy, because it won't be. If you say no, I'll respect that."

"Oh, Aidan," and it's with such sorrow that he knows that whatever follows can't be good, "I'm sure you mean alright, but you've made a lot of bad decisions. And this, this has heartbreak written all over it."

"I know." Aidan looks away. He's already beginning to feel it.

He should have known that Richard, who's been through a lot more and knows the stakes, would be a lot more amenable.

"I can't do this. I can't," Dean fumbles for words, " _share_ you with someone else."

Aidan nods.

All of the cheerfulness and optimism of last night is gone. Instead, his heart sits bruised in his chest. For all the times he's not known what he was doing, this is not one of those times. He's serious. But he deserves it. He's been leading Richard on, and asking Richard to give Dean a try, and now he's pulled Dean along into the wreckage that remains of all the things he touches.

He wants so desperately to be loved.

"Yeah, okay."

He just stands there. His eyes are blurry and he wants to turn away, get Dean out of the room, and just cry until his tears run out. Not in front of Dean; never in front of Dean. So, awkwardly, he does he best he can and mumbles, "Want to grab a coffee or something?"

"You're sure about this."

"I could go for a coffee," he shrugs, his eyes out of focus.

"Not the coffee."

It's much easier to think about the coffee though, but eventually Aidan has to cave. When he does, he has to fight hard to keep his emotions in check. They all want a shot at ruining him, and he can't let that happen, not until he's alone. He whispers, "I wouldn't suggest it otherwise. Not to you."

"I'm gonna go to hell."

"I'll beat you to it a hundred times over."

"Give me time," Dean says, "And if I'm out, I'm out."

Aidan looks up.

Dean tries for a smile.

 

*********

 

Aidan keeps looking at Dean. He should be eating.

They're at breakfast, half an hour later. The table in front of them is a mess with crumbs everywhere but hardly a thing eaten, and their ride to the next round of promotional work will be at the door soon. But, fork stuck between his lips, he can't seem to stop looking. A grin slips in between his lips and around the fork.

"Oh, go on," Dean caves.

"You sure?" Aidan's free thumb ghosts over the button of his phone.

"You didn't hesitate when you took it. If you want to back out now..."

Aidan stubbornly presses down.

"Done."

He quickly adds a message to accompany the photo he's just sent.

Richard, if he's not already up, is going to wake up to a picture of him and Dean caught in the middle of a kiss, taken at a poor angle and out of focus, but unmistakably them nonetheless.

They agreed on soon; he just hopes it's not _too_ soon. They haven't exactly breached that topic since last night.

"You're up next," the words buzz into appearance somewhere on the fourth floor.

Ten full minutes of nervousness later, far too long for a normal text reply, Aidan's hands are trembling when Richard finally sends back his reply.

"You're going to have to do that again where I can see it."


	13. Dean

Ireland. And England.

And then there's New Zealand.

Aidan and Richard, and him.

It's slightly surreal, all of it.

Sometimes Dean still has a hard time grasping that he's managed to get involved with two guys. For starters, they're guys. Sure, he's had a few tries in the past and he can't say it was all that unpleasant; that's not really the issue. Men work well for him if he's not looking for more than a casual something. He's never had his heart really captured by a man though, and in this case in particular he has wanted first one and realised he actually liked the other. Two. That's definitely new. 

Then there's the fact that they're guys. Plural. 

He doesn't know how to even go about that. What's he supposed to do? Really, if someone could tell him, that'd be great.

Do they just do great stuff together, and occasionally fuck? Or do they all have to share everything, meaning that if not all three of them are occupied - it's kind of hard to share a kiss between more than two people at the same time - at least one will be watching. He's got no trouble with a healthy bit of voyeurism either, but that's when he's doing the watching. To have others watching _him_. Well.

Three different islands.

Oh, and did he mention he's on the furthest one of them?

If he's honest, he doesn't see this working out for him. It will most likely end with Aidan and Richard finding each other and getting rid of him as the middle man. In a nice enough way, surely, but there'll come a day where they pull him aside and break it to him in the gentlest possible way that, hey Dean, maybe they should stop this and continue as friends? 

A few weeks later, they'll admit they've been drawn back to each other again, of course. Something like that. They live closest to each other, it's more convenient, and he can think of a number of reasons to further argue why he's got no place among people like Aidan and Richard.

On the other hand, he thinks, as he looks at his reflection in the mirror of the men's room, there's also that small detail where he gets to have Aidan. Aidan, who's been his closest friend on set for so long and whom he's shared so much with, but whose smiles are suddenly that much more precious and whose grin has the power to make him shudder.

He thinks he can get used to Richard, but it's Aidan that does it for him. 

He likes to think of himself as a bit of a hedonist. Dean likes the fine things in life. There are those things that happen once and are meant to last. Then, there are those that pass you by and ask you to enjoy it while you can. The gap years, the bonfires on a beach, the drunken mistakes of a lifetime. He doesn't know where this between Aidan, Richard and him will fit. But if it burns out too soon, at least he can say in his old day that once he's been on fire. He owes it to himself to give it his all.

Which is why he runs a hand through his hair and straightens his back, pulling his jacket into a near press, and mentally prepares himself. There's a live show waiting for him and, if he thinks about the two of them now, waiting for him to finish up with his evening schedule to meet them, he's going to give himself away in front of the world.

The stage lights blind him when he enters the stage; they do most of the times. He smiles into the flare of a Fresnel and hopes someone out there thinks he's looking at them. It's nice to have that connection, even if the lights make it hard for him. An audience claps for his arrival. Luke's already there, discussing some last things, before he notices Dean and gives him a firm handshake. The cameras aren't yet rolling, so he's got time to settle in his chair and pull up his decorum.

Dean really wants to be somewhere else right now.

He switches off the sound and tucks away his phone in his back pocket. He'd rather take it out to have another look at that particular picture hidden five folders deep and titled 'Proof of Warranty.jpg'. Just in case someone takes his phone and starts browsing. It is rather incriminating material, after all. It's a great picture. A bit of a personal drug, if he's honest with himself. And equally dangerous.

The interview doesn't take too long. The land of television doesn't come to a screeching halt during Christmas Eve, but since it's a special, and it's live, that means that once the cameras are on it's a fairly short affair. Not that talk shows usually last long - he shows up, talks, and is off to the next or home - but still. Today is one of those days where every moment counts. His parents have been bothering him to drop by tonight or tomorrow and have a meal with the family. He said he'd drop by on Christmas Day if his schedule allows it. 

What he really means is, he doesn't know how things will turn out and what will happen. He doesn't know if he's going to want to stay so badly or run equally hard. Since they decided they're going to do this, it'll be the first time that the three of them will be in the same room. It's nerve-racking.

When the show's over, he stays a while for decency's sake. Luke's off his continent and won't be seeing his folks or anyone special even if he left and had a flight home right now. And who needs a son with a jetlag at your dinner table? So he chats with him for a little while, reminisces about some good moments on set, the usual stuff. 

But when the messages start pouring in one by one through his phone and Aidan is getting impatient, he excuses himself without the least bit of regret at last. He doesn't look at the messages, afraid that if he looks at them now, someone else will see.

Of course, it's a hotel room they picked to meet up. They can ill afford to be spotted making out in an alley or equally publicly private place. Aidan opens it with a grin, half an hour later.

His lips look raw and Dean knows, _knows_ , what is going on.

"Finally." The voice is surprisingly deep.

Before Dean knows what's happening, Aidan loops an arm around the back of his neck and pulls him in. The door shuts with a rough shove behind him, and then he's in the room with Aidan darkly looking him over, and he knows that somewhere in the room behind him, there's Richard as well. Aidan doesn't get this bothered without someone else.

Contrary to what Dean suspects will happen - being pressed against the door and pulled into a deep kiss right there and then, and god knows how badly he wants that - he's instead pulled along into the room and deposited onto a large couch. Richard takes up the other side of the couch, acknowledging him with out of breath, "Hi."

"Hey."

He's got the feeling that if he hadn't shown up, they would not miss him.

"You were...?" Dean asks as he looks between them, his voice not at all accusatory. At least, he doesn't think it should be. They're in this together, that's what they all said. Admittedly though, it would have been nice to know that this was going to be the situation when he got here. Would have saved him the minor sting of jealousy. Here Aidan and Richard are, and he feels like they've been sharing so much already, and he just sits there not knowing what to do with it. What happened to taking it slow?

"Not yet," Aidan himself sits down on the floor in front of the couch, not so bothered with the difference in height or that he has to look up now. Dean's stress levels sink a bit. So this, with them being painfully turned on, is because they haven't. Done anything, that is. He likes that. "Fuck, Dean, what took you so long? Didn't you get the messages we sent?"

Well. That explains the incessant buzzing in his pocket in the taxi on its way here, shot with nerves as he's been.

"He didn't," Richard says and chuckles. Nervously, Dean notes. None of them are fully at ease with this. That's a relief, at least.

"You have no idea how hard it's been, waiting for you."

It's not too hard to imagine. Aidan's desire is spiking palpably, and Richard shifts in his seat. They've been holding back for as long as they've been in the room together. Which must have been long; forty-five minutes by his count at least. Aidan's teeth worry his lower lip and he looks up. It may be because they had to wait too long, but the anticipation in his eyes is stripping him naked.

For a moment, Dean doesn't know what to do. He just sits there, trapped between two obviously wound up men, who turn out to have been waiting for him. He'd really like a drink, and, you know, unwind from work. Maybe watch some TV or try to read another book he knows he'll never finish. And then, half an hour later, he would maybe be ready for this. As of now, he feels ill equipped to deal with the situation.

That's not going to happen, though. 

Aidan whispers, "Can I...?" and it's so tentative, so gorgeously careful, that it's all Dean needs. He nods.

He watches as Aidan pushes himself off the ground. For someone who acts like he can't wait another second, the movements are surprisingly slow and supple. Aidan leans his weight against his knees, gently pries them apart, and moves up between them until they're almost the same level. The weight of his hands on his legs are heavier than should be when he leans up.

It's weird, with Richard sitting next to them. He keeps thinking about it. When Aidan's lips touch his, Dean's eyes flutter open several times, conscious of the other person in the room. It's awkward and in every way different from the first time they kissed - yet it feels more like a first kiss than that one did. 

If Richard's anything like Dean, there'll be jealousy hidden behind that facade there. Possessiveness. Not for the first time he wonders if this is really something they should be doing.

Aidan softly pulls away when he's met with little response. "Dean?" he whispers. His eyes are half-lidded, the enchantment still not worn off. "Take your time. I'm here."

Coming from someone like Aidan, who is impulsive and full of life and little regret, supportive sentences like that don't feel natural. Nonetheless there's something about it undeniably pulling him in. Dean blindly creeps his left hand across the cool leather of the couch until he feels Richard's leg under his fingertips. Leaving them there, he gives in and tentatively moves his lips against Aidan's. It's delicate and intimate. Too intimate to have someone seeing them, except when Richard searches out the hand at his side and runs a finger across it, no doubt in insecurity but at the same time giving him goose bumps, Dean thinks he might be alright with him watching.

It takes him half a minute to really allow the kiss. They're going slow and shakily, and Aidan is starting to radiate insecurity when he realises Dean needs longer than he thought. It's nothing like that first kiss, which needed only a second to kick off. It's odd how it doesn't feel like that now; it feels like that classy case of getting piss drunk and kissing and fucking the living daylights out of someone, only to wake up with a hangover realising the chemistry was in the alcohol, and not in them. Dean is almost dragged along in the hesitation. But he does like Aidan, and they weren't drunk when they first kissed.

He wants it to work.

Which is why Dean pulls away and fists the back of Aidan's shirt in his free hand. He looks down into the nervousness and the unanswered questions brimming in Aidan's large, dark eyes. He's hardly seen him so vulnerable. For now, he ignores there's another man on the couch next to him. Dean manoeuvres Aidan up until the other sits astride him, biting his lip so beautifully, and then pulls him down to lick a delicate line across his ear shell.

The way Aidan's breath hitches against his cheek is wonderful in so many ways. Dean enjoys the way his chest rises and falls when he slides his lips down to his jugular and then to his neck. He pulls him closer against him when Aidan's hips involuntarily buck. Both hands move to rest on the taller man's hips, thumbs unintentionally easing the fabric up.

Their mouths crash together in a breathy frenzy.

Aidan is urgency incarnate when his hips move sensuously atop him. His strong hands cup Dean's face when they kiss, before they slide further and tangle into his short hair and are then draped across the back of the couch. Every bit of contact screams for more.

"Finally," Aidan whispers. He means to nip on Dean's bottom lip, but the kiss is sloppy and impatient, and it ends up rough and mildly coppery, and Dean just can't seem to mind. His fingers crawl under the shirt onto heated skin. He's quickly losing control over himself.

It's Aidan. All he wants right now sits on his lap, is within reach of his hands, ready for him, and god knows how much he wants to claim more than what he's currently getting. Aidan will never be enough. When the kiss finally ends, it ends far too soon. Dean tries to engage in another one before Aidan shakes his head and instead he lets his head falls back against the couch. Dean looks up at Aidan through hazy eyes.

Aidan's completely, utterly fuckable right now.

He means to sit this one out simply looking up at the other. His body betrays him by screaming for more. Aidan looks down at where their hips join. A proud smirk sits on his face. He did that. Dean doesn't bother to hide it as Aidan doesn't bother with courtesies. The man obviously likes what he's done. He and moves in for a last, languid kiss.

"Do you want me to wait?" he asks hotly against Dean's ear, between the two of them.

It's not waiting for them, because Aidan would not have to ask. 

Dean catches his meaning well enough. He doesn't want to. He means that. Just him and Aidan, that's all he needs. But it's one of the conditions of their agreement. Bear with it, he tells himself. So he closes his eyes, still painfully turned on, and shakes his head.

"Go."

When Aidan brushes a thumb over his cheeks and lips, it's almost the touch of a lover. The kiss that follows is equally light, and yet lingering. It's beautiful, but intoxicating. Unfulfilling. It makes him want to throw him on the bed and subvert him until nothing remains but a sobbing mess begging for more. It makes him want to ruin him and build him back up again. And then, maybe then he'll be sated. 

Dean would never actually do that. He's made of more than that.

He wonders if Richard is.

Dean still feels the tingle of the kiss when Aidan reaches a hand out to Richard and, rather than getting out of his lap, pulls the other in.

When it comes to Richard, he's not really sure what to think. Dean has thought of Richard naked before. He's wondered what it would be like to kiss him - the truth turned out to be very different - and he's imagined him running those hands all over him. He admits by now he might have a thing for large hands, given they're Richard's or Aidan's. The thing is, Dean has been there in his mind, which is why, he reasons, it's not half as hard to tap into that again as he thought.

But it's odd that he made a choice, yet now he gets to have both of them. The world shouldn't usually work like that.

In Richard, he sees all the insecurity that Dean felt, minutes back, and even though Richard and Aidan have done this before, it's no less hesitant.

Richard's just seen his interest make out with a man, he realises. Right in front of him. A stroke of sympathy crawls into him.

It threatens to leave him the moment he lays eyes on the way something else takes over Richard - something carnal and dominant - right before he kisses Aidan, and Aidan actually whimpers and Christ, Dean's going _down_.

He sits stunned when Richard gathers up Aidan like he's nothing and lifts him up off the couch. He doesn't know what to do. There's something about him that allows no objection, and all other thoughts simply short-circuit. Richard's never this straightforward. But, he thinks, this isn't Richard. Not entirely so.

He knows what is going to happen.

Dean mouth's dry.

He sits there without moving. It's the way Aidan blindly grasps for his hand to pull him along - it slides off his leg - when he's carried to the bed that brings him out of it and gives him the reassurance he needs. He's not forgotten. 

He nevertheless stays where he is. A turn is all Dean needs to have him face the bed. What he sees makes him want to break them up and let them continue at the same time. Aidan's his. His. But there's no denying the man beautiful he looks as he's undone layer by layer and desperately pulls Richard down to mash their lips together. His legs arched, he's looking for more friction than he gets.

Richard looks up from where he pins Aidan to the bed once. His eyes bore into Dean. The sight's as territorial as it's got confused questions. It tells him enough to deduct his own conclusion. Richard wants this as much as Dean wants it for himself. Aidan's not his, but neither is he Dean's, which means that this, whatever this is, is between himself and Richard. Aidan, as much as he deserves more, is the prize for whosoever wins.

For a moment Richard looks like he's not going to let him in. But then Aidan's head falls sideways and his eyes open barely. When they catch Dean, he smiles. "Come here."

Richard looks like he wants to protest, yet he's got no defense when Aidan tells him, "Take off my shirt," and stretches his chest off the bed to help him. The piece of cloth comes off with a struggle. Aidan looks up at Richard full with desire when the shirt is quickly discarded and he licks his lips.

"Now Dean's."

Dean and Richard look at each other. They both realise at the same time that it's not going to be either them calling the shots tonight. Richard looks like he might protest, which is why Dean caves and, standing next to the bed, spares him when takes it off himself before adding it to the pile, which gives him both a scowl and an appreciative glance from Aidan.

"Not fair," he whispers.

"Have you looked at yourself?" Dean laughs, "And you talk about unfair?"

"I'll blow you if you kiss him," Aidan offers like he's got no shame in the world.

Dean's brain function shuts down faster than a shooting star. "You can't say shit like that," he replies, bewildered. 

But Aidan can, and he just did. Raising an eyebrow, he merely smiles, "The offer stands," and pulls a disoriented Richard in for another kiss. He makes no further move to get Dean onto the bed, even if he just got him shirtless, and instead indulges in Richard venting off his frustration in ways that shows they've done this together before.

Dinner with the family tomorrow is going to be a torment.

Dean just stands there for too long, watching as Richard pulls Aidan further away from him and into their own little world. When he starts with Aidan's belt however, Dean's through with being on the sidelines. In many ways the two men before him have the advantage. They've slept with each other before, they live on the same continent, and for tonight at least they're much easier with taking what they want. So he does what he knows trumps all of that - or, in this situation it does.

When Aidan opens his eyes again, Dean's lying down next to him, down to his boxers and kisses him hard.

"Get your hands off him," Richard growls at once.

Dean and Aidan freeze. Slowly, they break apart and stare at him. What they see when their eyes meet the third man is something that makes Aidan shudder, and Dean back away. It's positively feral.

"Rich," he tries placating.

"Do not test me, youngling. Off!"

For a few seconds longer they sit like that. Then Aidan's eyes roll shut and his hand guides Dean's face back to his. "We're in the company of royalty," he whispers hotly into his hair, right before he kisses him, "Watch and learn." Of course, that's all rather pointless advice, and it's more likely to get him killed - kissing back despite the express command because Dean's a sucker for Aidan like that - than be rewarding.

Richard doesn't respond for two blissful seconds.

Then Dean's shoved onto his back, stumbling and frightened for his life, and Richard pins him down against the mattress with two hands.

"Don't touch what isn't yours."

Dean looks terrified when he dares a glance at Aidan next to him, then back at Richard. It's also more than a little wounding to be shut out so easily, so blatantly by what he previously assumed was the most gentle of them three.

Aidan's unperturbed. Maybe it's an act, or maybe he really knows how to deal with this. "Don't break your own laws," he challenges either way, and rolls onto his side next to Dean. His unbuttoned jeans are pushed dangerously low on his hips and he cares nothing about that, before looking up at Richard. His hand plays circles across Dean's chest. "He's mine. Remove your hands from him."

To further solidify his point, he pushes himself in between Thorin and Dean and proceeds to give Dean what counts as the most dangerous kiss in his life. By doing so, he willingly turns his back on Thorin - for Dean has caught on about that, now - and it's a risk he's willing to take.

Except just when Dean's hands seek him out again and he wonders how much more confusing this will get, Thorin drags Aidan off of him with a whimper, pushes him down so he's defenseless, and strips him of his last belongings. Dean only gets a small chance to see his previously closest friend naked, before the body's covered by Richard's. "Very well," he hisses, "We'll have it your way."

There's nothing gentle about the way he spreads Aidan's legs apart and forces a finger inside. Dean sees from the edge of the bed how Aidan arches up and groans, and it's pleasure and pain mixed together in such a way that he aches to intervene. He can't; Dean is rooted to the spot. He makes a small move once, but Thorin glares at him and their standing is at once made clear.

It's a two man show from that moment on. Dean watches how Thorin removes his own clothing, how he moves on top of Aidan and how a second finger is added. Soon Aidan demands more and more and his half-spoken sentences become litanies. It's beautiful, it really is. But he's got no part in it, nor does he when Thorin shoves in and Aidan cries out, and so many things inside of him shift, because he can't _do_ something.

Dean sits powerless.

Once, Aidan reaches out a hand for him. It's snatched back halfway there and pinned next to his head. The next few thrusts delivered are meant to send him back into oblivion. It works; Aidan doesn't try it again. His breaths are slowly shortening, the staccato of prematurely ended breaths rising in his chest. He loves it. Fingers draw deep into Thorin's back and legs hook around his hips, meeting him every single time.

It's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, but it's also the most painful.

When Aidan cries out his orgasm, a ribbon bursting across the flat of his stomach, and Richard close to following, Dean slowly gets up from the bed. He doesn't look at them when he gathers up his clothes and puts his jeans and shirt back on.

"Dean?" Aidan asks tiredly behind him.

He can't bear to look at them a moment longer.

There's no room for him in this miniature world.

He can hear the moment when Thorin crashes and, in the aftermath, Richard finally returns. His hand grips the handle of the open door hard. "Oh, god. Dean. Wait, please, I-"

The door closes.

An empty hallway away from that which he wants stretches out before him.

Dean feels like he's falling apart.


	14. Aidan

The first time they speak again is on a sunny afternoon. It's still freezing cold in Dublin. The rain just doesn't seem to stop and, when it does, it'll just start snowing instead. Aidan longs for the warm afternoons of New Zealand. He's hardly had the chance to just sit there with a lager and some friends and do nothing but watch the sun sink below the horizon, like - according to the silver screen - a good summer afternoon below the equator is supposed to entail. He misses not just the weather.

He appreciates the few days off he's given. It means he can catch up with people at home. Some gigs are lined up already, and he's got a few important auditions in a week, but for now his schedule's blissfully empty. And the city is beautiful, even if he doesn't pay a lot of attention to it anymore. He still likes going for a Sunday morning walk every once in a while, because that's the moment all is quiet on the bridges except for a few church bells in the distance, and it's like he's got a city all to himself.

He's just on his way home from lunch when his phone buzzes. Unsuspecting, one hand still in his pocket to keep the cold at bay, Aidan slides the message onto his screen.

Dean.

"I'm out. I'm sorry."

That's it, then.

Aidan has seen it coming; he'd be lying if he said he didn't. Dean hasn't talked to him for days. Weeks, because he kept count. He can't help it, he misses him like crazy. He doesn't know about Richard but he doubts that Dean would block him out and still let Richard in, since Richard's at the heart of all things falling apart.

Still, he would have preferred to be home when the message came in, because his knees almost betray him and they've still got a long way to walk.

How did things end up like this?

If he's honest, and right now he doesn't want to be, then he knows it's him. He was the one who asked Dean along. Richard suggested it to him in the first place, sure, but Aidan accepted and Aidan also seems to be the only one to fully profit from it. He didn't expect Thorin to come out. But that's not entirely what bothers him.

The thing is, it's been a selfish venture from the start. Its failing should be accredited to him first of all. If Dean and Richard can't want each other, they can only want him. He thought it would come in time, to give it the chance to bud, but things apparently don't work like that. Wishful thinking truly is a bitch.

He doesn't know how to reply and, because it fucking hurts no matter how far along he could have seen this coming, he doesn't. All day he stares at the message and wonders if he could do something. Anything will do if it fixes this. But he doesn't. Aidan may be great with decisions when they're made impulsively; he feels like a coward at heart in the face of this.

Richard sends him a message when he's just trying to eat dinner.

"I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

The spoon is tossed onto his plate angrily and Aidan throws the phone across the couch. He'd rather toss it against the wall, but quality these days is not what it used to be, and oh, like he'd give a damn anyway. He looks at the incriminating device, wondering if he should pick it up and throw it again anyway.

While he can only think about Dean with regret, he's still absolutely livid with Richard. Or Thorin. He doesn't care. What he does care about is that what happened ruined everything. Dean and he no longer talk. He misses the sex with Thorin, sure - if everything falls, that continues to be great - but everything has its price and this was definitely not what he bargained for. Dean's too high a price to pay for great sex alone.

But he can't blame Richard. Because hasn't Aidan coaxed Thorin out of him so many times before, and that night in particular as well?

Aidan is above all angry with himself.

"I miss him," he sends back, because he doesn't have it in him to tell Richard he forgave him already. Part of him wants him to suffer for that for a few minutes longer.

"You still want this to continue?"

Aidan smiles bitterly and stabs into his spaghetti. "You're going to tell me it's not going to happen, and you'd be right," he replies. Maybe, if he says it like this, Richard won't have a chance to reply.

He does so anyway. "I'm sorry."

Aidan groans. "Will you stop that?"

"Sorry."

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"Is there anything I can do?" Richard follows up.

Seduce the hell out of Dean and get him back into this. Aidan wryly smiles. Yes, if only. He shakes his head to get rid of the stray thought. It's beyond them now. "Make it up to him," he types back, "and we're even."

It's rather pathetic, he thinks, to only be talking to the two people he wants more than anything over text. There's that appropriate saying about not knowing what you have until it's gone. Aidan may have thought he'd known what he had all along, but now that he's lost Dean as a friend and Richard won't stop apologising, nothing could ring more true.

The thing is, he wants Dean. He wants him stripped on the bed next to him, kissing him like there's no tomorrow. Opening his eyes to that sight and that knowledge had been a personal highlight in his life. He doesn't want to go back to a friendship where he has to pretend he doesn't want him.

He also wants Richard. Richard. Thorin's all fun and games, but Thorin's not in it for the long run. All he knows how to do is follow his desires and abide by his own laws. In a way he's more true to himself than all three of them combined. But that's just it. There's three of them. You can't make that work if you don't know how to give and take. Thorin only takes.

Richard only gives, but Richard could learn.

He sighs.

It is ended. There's no point thinking about what could have been.

 

*********

 

The next time they meet, it's in a hotel in Rome and Aidan doesn't understand a word that's being said by the receptionist whose English seems poor and suffused with the speed of Italian, while he just wants to know which bus line gets him where he needs to be and the man could have just given him a map and be done with it.

Instead he's making a big scene and muttering something about 'americani stupidi', and Aidan stares at him distastefully, because he's not an idiot and he really doesn't need those kinds of remarks right now. He's already late as it is. The plane got delayed, and checking in was a mess, and for god's sake, could he be going now?

"I'll just get a taxi," he says at last in the thickest American accent he can muster up, just to spite, and rounds on his heels.

Of course Dean stands right in front of him, in line for the desk and perplexed at seeing him, when he does.

"Dean."

Dean looks away. And that fucking stings.

"Aidan."

"I thought you'd be on your way already. You're going to run late."

Aidan doesn't know why he says that, of all things. There are so many topics to pick from. It just slips out and he wants to slap himself in the face the moment he does.

"Don't get me started on my trip, mate."

He looks him over. It's nice to see him again. It's been too long, and they never talked after Dean sent him that final message. It feels like a lifetime ago. But it doesn't. Aidan still wants to kiss him and watch him fall asleep in the same bed as him and make sure he's alright by the end of the day. Which makes it all the more awkward.

Needing something to distract him, he gestures for Dean's suitcase. "Look, how about you check in when we get back? I'll get your stuff up to my room and you call us a taxi. We're both late."

It's obvious that Dean doesn't want to, but getting through check-in is going to take them ten minutes longer at least, provided everything goes well and the receptionist doesn't go off on another rant, so it's the best thing they've got. Aidan looks hopeful.

"Fine," Dean takes out his phone, "Get back here as fast as you can."

"Great, got it!" Aidan grins, because it's a personal victory. When Dean responds to that by pulling back and uncomfortably looking away, Aidan is suddenly hit with the urge to kiss him. He doesn't move. Seconds later, he snaps out of it and curses himself.

This is bad.

Dean may or may not have seen it, but Aidan hurries to get the suitcase to his room nonetheless. When he returns to the lobby, five minutes and a kids-in-an-elevator frustration later, the man's waiting patiently for him.

"Car's out front," he says without looking at him, "Come on."

It's just their luck to be stuck in traffic for the next half an hour, seated next to each other, and both wanting to avoid each other more than anything else. The taxi driver tries to make idle conversation with them at first, but it's an old man; he quickly stops when it becomes known he doesn't know a lot of English, and whatever comes out is just gibberish and quotes from movies.

Twenty minutes later, they've both exhausted whatever methods a phone can provide to not initiate conversation. Aidan contemplates a game - Dean catching him at that would be painful, but he's desperate for a distraction enough to have the odds tipping in the game's favour - when Dean out of the blue says, "You never got back to me."

Right.

The outskirts of Rome pass them by on a blur. "Well," Aidan says sincerely. "I couldn't improve on the silence."

"You gave up."

"Don't talk to me about giving up." Aidan's voice is quiet. Defeated. There's no fight left in him. "You wanted out, so I let you out."

There's a long silence.

"How are you and Richard?"

Aidan shrugs. He feels half offended at the suggestion in the undertones, but he can't blame Dean. He's just weary of it all. "There's no we, now is there? If you want to know how he's doing, you should ask him yourself."

"He says he's sorry."

"He says that a lot."

"I'm meeting him for dinner tonight. He said he's got things to discuss with me. Would you happen to know what about?"

That surprises Aidan. Richard is not usually the one taking the initiative. And, he doesn't. Part of it is wounding; Richard's making plans with Dean, but he's not so much as asked Aidan to do something with just the two of them, nor mentioned anything about their plans to him. It informs him that whatever they had, it's well and truly no longer there.

He shakes his head, and swallows past the lump as his eyes start following the lantern lights outside.

Just when he thinks the silence will kill them, Dean puts away his phone.

"New Zealand's been hectic," he starts, softly, because apparently they could both use a good distraction. "I've been to the studio a couple of times. They needed extra shots of Fíli. It's really weird being all dressed up like him again and working with body doubles, because everyone else is off doing promotions. Nobody talks in those shots but me. You know, because of the voices. It felt like I was acting around mutes."

That brings a smile to Aidan's face. They used to be friends able to tell each other those things. For old times' sake, he throws in, "I hope nobody shamed Kíli."

Dean makes himself comfortable in his chair. They're inside the car for twenty minutes, and he only does that now. That says a lot. "Oh, definitely. I've got a few really nice incriminating pictures."

"Show me," Aidan guffaws.

To his surprise, Dean does show him. Of course he half-jokingly mentions he's got copies of these pictures at his laptop, should anything happen to his phone while he's not watching. Aidan sees pictures of miniature Kílis and Fílis doing stupid things like riding piggyback or rolling around. On the floor. Dean captured that on video. There's one where Dean and a Fíli double stand behind Kíli double on the ground with proud faces as if he's a war trophy.

Then he slides a picture too far and they're met with the picture of Aidan kissing Dean for real, and Aidan awkwardly pulls back into his seat to look out the window once again.

"You kept it."

"Oh Aid, I'm not out because I don't want it."

Aidan stares back with desperation. They're doing this then; they're having the dreaded conversation that's been looming over them like a dark cloud in a cab with a foreign driver and only five more minutes left on the clock.

They're not having the conversation. Aidan lunges forward and - never been one for seat belts on the back seat - kisses him the way he should have kissed him weeks ago. It's wonderful, so incredibly fulfilling, and he doesn't ever want to stop. The way Dean's mouth tastes against him feels natural, the hint of tobacco and lemon and _Dean_.

He pulls away far too soon and covers his mouth with a hand. "Shit," he whispers, retreating to his own seat, "I'm sorry."

Dean sits shocked.

Aidan really keeps messing up. "I mean," he feels the need to stop any further misunderstandings, "I'm not. I don't regret kissing you. Kissing you, man, that's great." Dean raises an eyebrow at the slightly too expressively rambling way he says it. The truth is, Aidan is at his wits' end too. So he just says what he means, even if it sounds stupid. "It's just," he flounders, "you know, Richard."

The driver throws them an odd look and Aidan, but thankfully he looks away soon and continues to mind his own business, which currently means singing along to the radio.

"You're not seeing him," Dean says.

"I'm not seeing you either. Doesn't mean I don't still want you."

The taxi driver subtly turns up the volume of his surround set in the front. Aidan has an inkling he knows exactly what's being said between the two men in the back, the fraud.

Dean looks at the photo on his phone again. "It doesn't matter." He tucks the phone away. "He doesn't share, which means we're all left with nothing."

"Thorin doesn't. I'm sure Rich would."

"Then Thorin screwed it up for all of us," Dean says with more anger than Aidan is really due, "I don't think you know how hard it is to see someone you care so much about being fucked by someone else. And loving it."

By now the added volume and the incessant holy Mary’s in front of the taxi are starting to grate on Aidan's nerves. "No, I don't," he raises his voice to be heard over the sound of the music, "I think it would be the best thing that could possibly happen to me if the two men I love could want each other as well, provided I'm not out of the equation."

"The two men you...-" Dean stops himself there.

"Love," Aidan finishes.

Because by now they deserve to know.

Aidan picks out his phone and reads the news pages once again. There's nothing new, but he needs to occupy his mind. The silence that follows is murderous.

They don't talk again for the rest of the ride.

 

*********

 

Aidan thinks Richard's avoiding him.

Dean won't talk to him and doesn't return any messages, even if they're light ones that have absolutely nothing to do with the mess between them. He asks when they're expected at a certain interview that Dean attends as well - completely innocent - and gets nothing in reply.

Richard's no better. During his stay in Rome, he apparently sees half of the cast that's there and goes out drinking with some of them during the evening, but Aidan catches not so much as a glimpse. And he understands that he fucked up with Dean, but what did Aidan ever do to Richard to deserve this?

By the second week, he's sure he's somehow ruined more than he knows, but he's at a loss about what to do to fix it. Richard and Dean refuse to acknowledge him. One morning he sees them share breakfast in the hotel restaurant when they're in London - which is utterly ridiculous, because Richard lives in the city and doesn't even need to sleep at a hotel, so why is he, and in the company of Dean for that matter? - and they try not to be too obvious as get up and leave as soon as he sees him walk in.

He's more than fed up with it.

He's also more than a little hurt by their treatment of him.

And then comes that day where he realises he can't find his hotel room key anywhere, even after upturning his pockets and his bag on the floor in the hallway in front of his door, and he turns and sees Richard awkwardly stare at him, then turn around and leave, and something breaks.

Aidan sinks down against the door and cries into the palms of his hands until staff finds him, try to calm him down as they arrange for a spare key, and he just continues with his face pressed into the pillow behind closed doors. He doesn't care if he's being a girl about this. He doesn't care about a lot of things anymore.

It's three in the morning when Dean finally ends radio silence.

"Are you awake?"

Aidan stares down. Three in the fucking morning.

He doesn't bother with niceties. "Depends. Who wants to know?"

"Could you please come over?"

The word 'please' jars. Dean never asks him something please. He just says what he wants, smiles at him with that impossible smile, and gets the deal done. Right now, Aidan wants to call him a lot of things and say even ruder stuff. Of course he can come over. If Dean stops being a dick. If the world ends and he has no other choice. If he's got cookies and removes himself from the room first.

In the end, he curses how his curiosity wins out and has him knock on the door at far too freaking early.

"Hi," Dean opens the door like he hasn't just avoided him for over a week.

"Fucker," Aidan hisses, and damn, it feels good to let that out.

Clearly, Dean must have expected such an answer and cringes, but opens the door for him nonetheless. "Sorry about the hour," he concedes.

Aidan grits his teeth. "I should go if that's all you're sorry about." But he walks in anyway. "What's this about, Dean?"

It's a bit odd that the main lights are off, and the smaller bedside lamps casting softer light are on. Something's amiss about that. Aidan looks around suspiciously.

"You might want to sit down."

But, and it gets really questionable there, there are no chairs or couches in the room. There's just a bed. It's a mighty charade Dean has got going on here. Aidan doesn't get the point. So in the end he begrudgingly sits down on the bed and unimpressedly looks up.

"Fine," he throws his hands up, "There, I'm sitting down. You're obviously preparing me for something, so out with it all right."

Aidan's nevertheless thoroughly unprepared for when the bathroom door opens up and Richard walks in, _freaking down to his underwear_. He's gorgeous, he really is, but Aidan's getting more apprehensive by the second and stuff like this doesn't happen if not for a reason. They're going to tell him they're together or something. Since they've been avoiding him, that's really the only logical explanation he can come up with. It can't be anything else.

And then Richard leans down and kisses Dean, and it's not just an innocent peck. It's then that Aidan has his cruelly given answer.

"You could have just told me," he whispers, "I would have been happy for you."

Richard looks down at him. No doubt he notices the wetness that pools in his eyes. Aidan's done fighting it. "What are you talking about?" he asks, his hand still cupping Dean's cheek.

Aidan shrugs weakly. He looks down to his hands. "Can I go now?"

Dean's the first to unlatch and move himself into Aidan's line of vision. "Aidan," he starts, leaning his weight against Aidan's knees, "Aid, look at me." Aidan curses him for managing to sound reassuring even now. He frowns and does so.

There are a lot of things he expects, but that smile is not one of them. Nor is the kiss that follows and that rules out so many things at the same time, while allowing new outcomes to take root.

It's not a demeaning kiss; it's sweet and undemanding, and it only goes further when so allowed. Dean moves to sit on the bed next to him. The kiss never breaks. Aidan breathes out the breath he didn't realise he was holding.

It's a lover's kiss.

It doesn't make sense. Aidan pulls away, his eyes full of questions. "But you’ve been-"

The bed dips on his other side. Richard presses a gentle kiss against his neck, and Aidan stops his thought.

"What's going on?" he wants explained to him.

Dean simply smiles. "What does it look like?"

They're just countering questions nobody wants to answer, Aidan thinks. But he thinks there might be an explanation in the way Dean slowly takes off his own shirt too and pushes himself further up on the bed, his eyes never leaving him.

Besides, then Richard whispers hotly against his neck, "What do you want me to do?" and there's no more denying it.

Aidan turns to look at him bewildered.

"Kiss him," his words come out shakily and unconvinced.

It's not real, he tells himself, when Richard actually lies down next to the smaller man, tips his head sideways, and engages him in a long, sensual kiss. It's not real. It's three fucking AM.

He's going to wake up to a cruelly executed joke on his behalf.

But the point is, when Richard pulls him out of his ever darkening thoughts and asks him with that sinfully deep voice that should be forbidden in a bedroom, "Are you in?", that Aidan knows they can do this to him every time and he will keep coming back. He wants it that much.

"No more Thorin," he says.

"Maybe sometimes," Dean says. He lies down on the bed with eyes closed and a knowing smile playing around his lips, "He's not so bad."

Aidan stares. That's coming from Dean. But then it dawns on him; all the ways he's been avoided over the past week, but the way they kept searching each other out. "You've planned this," he whispers, realising. "All that hiding, every time you wouldn't answer me. What did you do?"

Richard smiles and looks down. He couldn't be further from the other man in his skin right now. Dean's hand idly traces patterns on his own stomach, completely at ease.

"That's what you do for the people you love, isn't it?" he looks up, and Aidan's breath hitches.

"You make it work."


	15. Epilogue

Come morning, the room that Aidan is expected to stay in is empty. Clothes are haphazardly thrown over a chair and the suitcase is still in the room. Otherwise, the room is devoid of signs that someone's sleeping here.

He's supposed to check out before eleven too, and by should that means he _really_ should, because if he doesn't he most likely won't catch his ride to the airport for a convention halfway across the globe, which means he'll be forced to wait for the next plane, and miss the appointment. And they're not going to be happy with him.

He doesn't show up at breakfast and he doesn't care either, despite the growling stomach that warns him that catching something on the way to the airport might not be an option. He just, well, has other priorities. Raising his head from where it's planted into the pillow, he finds an arm draped across his lower back and if he cranes his head up or cants it, he can see Richard sleeping next to him right next to him on the other side.

Aidan smiles and keeps silent. The way Richard's eyes move behind his eyelids like he's in the middle of a dream is mesmerising. It looks anxious, but incredibly peaceful at the same time.

"Mh," Dean rumbles behind him, "Morning."

Aidan's eyes close contently. He could get used to this. The voice infuses a warmth in his chest that has not been there for too long. Sometimes it's still slightly overwhelming. "Morning."

Aidan watches when his voice rouses Richard from his sleep. He could lie here and watch this all day.

It's still weird to think that Dean of all people got Richard on board again. He never did get the full story, last night - which was technically this morning. God. This morning. It makes him want to roll over and fall asleep again. He grins and stays very much awake at the memories though.

"Hey Dean?" he finally wonders, at which the hand wraps around his waist and tugs him slightly closer, a sleep-groggy moan acknowledging him, while Richard looks at him, "You never told me exactly what you did two together."

Dean chuckles. "I think that's something we should talk about later. Will you accept that answer for now?"

"Of course I don't."

"God, you're beautiful," Richard whispers, completely off-topic and sleep-drunk, and draws him in for a kiss.

"Well, if you must know," Dean rambles on, amused at nobody paying him any attention, while Aidan stops having ears for him, "We did that too." When he's met with no response, he adds, "Actually, I think we took it as far as we could without actually doing it."

Aidan pulls apart. "You did not," he gasps.

Richard props himself up on an elbow. He's too sleepy to be properly coherent; nevertheless he manages to say, "Would you have rather had us three share a bed, being equally reluctant to share as we were last time?" He's got a sense of casualness in his voice that's usually not there. Richard exudes balance. "We didn't want to give you that hope unless we could live up to it."

"So did we?" Dean wants to know.

"You avoided me for a week," Aidan says, but he's not angry about that any more.

Richard tucks his chin up for another kiss. "There was a very big possibility that we couldn't. Live up to it, I mean. We didn't want you to know-"

"-until we knew for ourselves," Dean adds, thinks, and leans up to whisper something in Aidan's ear. Richard looks at them funnily all the while - unperturbed, but eager to know.

Aidan nods, a sparkle alight in his eyes, and naturally he doesn't tell Richard a word.

"We should get up," he tells instead, "We're running late."

But only because Dean's suggestion is their little secret until they get to the next hotel, and because he likes the way Richard looks at him like he's not being fair, but he's reluctantly charmed nonetheless.

They didn't go all that far last night. Normally, Aidan would have made things happen anyway - he has that innate ability that sometimes surprises himself as well - but it feels right this way. It's not hurried. He doesn't think they went too slow. If anything, slow is good. They merely kissed and touched. Although 'merely' is not quite the word Aidan would use, because the articles of clothing between them have been scarce, and neither one of them has been left unfulfilled.

Dean's the last to get out of bed, intent on instead watching Aidan and Richard get dressed. "This will be difficult, won't it?" the stray question leaves him while he looks around for his shorts.

"Probably," Aidan says. Because it will be. There are no shortcuts to relationships like theirs. There are going to be times where they will want to be out, and the times in between will be hard enough as they are.

"Just promise me that you don't decide having just Richard's much easier for you," Dean says half-jokingly and half dead serious. Richard wants to respond at once. He frowns and his lips part, appalled at the suggestion. By the time he's ready to say it, Aidan's beat him to it, climbed back on the bed and kissed Dean properly and thoroughly, and dispelled the thought in his own way.

He shakes his head resolutely. "Don't think you're getting out of it that easy."

"He does live closer."

Aidan shrugs. "Don't care. The same goes for you two, got it?"

That draws surprised looks from Dean and Richard, but Aidan just pulls on his shirt and says, "Oh come on, you know you're too good for me sometimes. I'm lucky you're fools enough to want me with you."

He waits for the playful shove with a broad grin hidden under his curls. Dean - who else? - is the one he finally receives it from. The way Richard laughs in response heats him right up.

They're still learning. Neither of them really know what to do about the awkward silences that sometimes fall. They're all new to this.

But it feels good, this time around.

 

*********

 

Rain taps in thick droplets against the large wall. Typically winter, it's freezing cold outside and the wind howls, this high up on the fifty-somethingth floor. They're by now supposed to be above the clouds, Richard thinks, but he's too tired to look it up, even if his curiosity burns bright.

As soon as the shoes are kicked off, he falls back on the bed. Twelve thirty, the clock shows. Witching hour; it's that late again. A jetlag's blooming close against the edges of his sleep and he feels tired, but he isn't.

Aidan sits down on the bed next to him with a flourish. He stops, gets up only to crank up the central heating, and falls back down again. Richard can't see Dean from where he lies, looking up at the ceiling, but he can hear him going into the bathroom, put his jacket away and, he thinks, the double thud might be from his shoes hitting the floor.

"Come here for a bit," Aidan asks him and he doesn't mind the extra feet to pull himself fully onto the bed until his head's supported by Aidan's lap and fingers card through his hair and gently rake the skin underneath. It feels wonderful. He could fall asleep like this, perhaps. Or perhaps not. He expects it has to be calming to lie like this, but half a minute in his heartbeat nervously picks up when he becomes aware of the comfort he receives from someone he least expected and he thinks he might still be unused to the choice they made.

Aidan just sits there, far too patient for his own good, and when Richard looks up, the man's looking down at him with a curious smile. "Remember what I said about being lucky?" he asks rhetorically. Richard feels warm inside. He shortly looks away, because for some reason he can't look at him and not feel bare, and Aidan takes the chance to awkwardly lean down for a kiss.

The turning point is two days past now. One day has been ruined by time zone differences, and the second has gone by in a blur, filled to the brim with scheduled events and no time for them other than hurried text messages. Richard admittedly wonders if it'll ever stop feeling like he wants to pin him down and shy away from him at the same time. Aidan's supposed to be a whirling thunderstorm, but he's just a spring breeze now.

Dean might be summer, he thinks, but the bed dips and before he knows it Richard finds himself straddled, and summer should not feel this much like forbidden fruit.

"Tired?" the man asks.

"A little," Richard admits. He feels Aidan's arms loop around his waist and his nose nuzzle in the nape of his neck. Dean only waits a second; then something else is infused into his gaze and he leans down and takes him into a kiss that starts slow, yet ends breathless.

Aidan whispers against his ear, "Whenever you're ready, Richard." He ends the last word with a peck against his neck and rests his chin on his shoulder. From there, Richard expects he's got a nice view of Dean, whose lips still hover almost against his in their unspoken invitation.

He knows where they're going. Nerves flutter through his stomach, and adrenalin forces open his pupils wide. He's not seen the world this clear. Aidan and Dean have both been looking at him with a slightly too suspicious look throughout the day; he's seen it coming. A small nod is enough. Aidan's fingers entwine with Dean's, and another slightly more predatory kiss is stolen from Richard's lips.

Richard wonders how he could have felt sleepy just a minute ago.

Then Dean's lips slide down to his neck and without thinking he cants his head to expose more of it, eyes falling shut. Dean needs no words. He doesn't try to egg Richard on, nor does he expect things from him.

The silence is comforting enough, so that soon he finds himself arching up into the touch and a hand reaching for Dean's waist. The way their tongues meet is languid, sensitive; a complete contrast with Aidan, who's demanding and desperate, and always has a taste for more.

Richard's long given up hope for him to get out of this unscathed when Dean's lips move away. He's too lost in the sensation to bother with responding to it until it takes a second too long and his hands urgently tugging the blond closer have no effect. The moment Richard opens his eyes and witnesses Dean kissing Aidan above him - Dean's body responding to the kiss by rolling into Richard's hips - an unwilling groan draws from his throat.

It's so much better when he knows that both of them are his.

Richard hitches when Aidan's warm hands slip between his shirt and the skin and start undoing buttons from the bottom up. He pauses frequently as if to give him a chance to go back. Richard doesn't for the life of him know how he would go back, even if he wanted to. They're still kissing, until the last button slips from the loop and Dean finally pulls away. He runs a thumb across his lips and smiles appreciatively when he looks down at what lies exposed before him.

Richard doesn't think his heart can beat any faster when Aidan's fingers find the waist of his dress pants, pauses, and unbuttons them gently when he's met with no objection. His fingers brush everywhere but where Richard wants them to go, and if he's not going to do that very soon, he think he might have to help him along.

But then his mind short-circuits a little when Dean takes over and - it's always the quiet ones, he thinks - pushes all of it down to his knees, at which point Richard figures he might as well kick the rest of it off before it'll restrict him from moving.

He feels self-conscious enough at the following gaze that wanders his body. Dean simply stares, quietly amazed.

"You've seen me like this before," Richard whispers. Why the sudden interest now?

Dean shakes his head. "Not like this," he tells him. He might be right; Richard's been the one leading everything up until now. Richard came to him to try a kiss, he took Aidan on the bed right in front of him and forced Dean's distance - it's something he still feels bad about - and when they gave each other a chance to see if three of them would work out, not depending on Aidan, it might have been Dean initiating the blowjob, but it's been Richard in everything else.

And it's been a bloody long time since someone's done this - because oh, he knows what it is - to him.

"Are you sure?" Dean asks him, careful. He doesn't have to, but it settles Richard's nerves considerably. For the second time he nods assent. He feels terribly naked, even if his shirt still clings to his shoulders.

Dean sees it. He grins - it looks confident enough, but it doesn't have Richard fooled - and looks up meaningfully at Aidan behind him. Aidan chuckles breathily and nods, before his hand slips down Richard's chest and to where a fine trail of hair fans out. Aidan and Richard have done this before, so he doesn't hesitate to wrap the hand firmly around his hard cock and let it rest there.

Richard tries to keep his eyes on Dean shedding his clothes before him, but it's hard when he'd rather fall back against the brunet, close his eyes and enjoy nothing but the pressure of the hand on him. He caves in the end; the last thing he sees before the back of his head rests against Aidan's chest and his breathing picks up, is Dean's eyes hooked onto Aidan's.

Then touch takes over. Aidan rearranges his legs on both his sides - no doubt because sitting cross-legged might not be the most comfortable way to do this - and supports him properly. His hand starts moving slowly, blissfully, but soon it's too slow and Richard bucks up his hips, needing more; Aidan is generous enough to supply.

"Do you know how beautiful you are right now?" he asks him quietly.

And Richard's not one for dirty talk - Thorin tends to be - and this doesn't exactly count as dirty talk, but it's still a step up from their careful actions and it comes from Aidan, who makes it sound entirely too hot, spoken deeply like he doesn't ever do, that he twists where he lies and pulls him down. They run out of breath far too soon, and Aidan licks his lips victoriously.

Dean kindly draws back the attention by closing his lips around the head of his erection, tongue instantly pressed flat against the flesh.

"... Christ, _Dean!_ " Richard hisses, torn completely out of his regularly acceptable vocabulary, while he screws his eyes shut and he presses his head against Aidan's chest. Lips curve around him, before they take him further in and a cool - too cool, too slick - finger lingers at the base.

"Tell me what you want," Dean asks him. The finger traces down his balls, and further more, until it rests at sensitive skin.

It's too soon for now, so Richard swallows and shakes his head. He's thankful for the way there's no dismissal or worry in Dean's eyes when he nods in acknowledgement. The hand quickly returns to his cock, and he relishes at the friction whenever it moves down at the same time Dean bobs up. Heat piles up under Richard's skin. It courses through him in ways that make him yearn for more fast; there's a distinct spike when he opens his eyes and looks down at the devoted way Dean moves his mouth around him and the sight is simply too much.

And then he can't stand it any longer. "More," he commands, lost in pleasure, "Go on."

Dean's tongue draws up wet and full. Then it's gone, and a finger presses in. It's uncomfortable and intrusive. Richard cringes in a reflex, and the finger stills. "Want me to stop?"

They really don't need to ask him this often. He shakes his head; of course he doesn't want it to stop. He just needs to go slow. Luckily slow is something Dean is more than capable to provide, because he leans over him and kisses him and whispers into it, "Alright."

They're doing surprisingly well so far, he realises when Aidan's hand darts out to toy a finger against Dean's cheek, Dean licks around it sensuously.

Richard wonders how on earth Aidan can keep so still.

Apparently he doesn't, because then the man promises, "I swear, I'm gonna hurt someone if you don't leave any for me." It's not the best choice of words for Aidan, who's had his fair share of hurt already, but it does the trick. They both respond at once. Dean moves deeper in, and Richard's moan rumbles deep in his chest.

It takes some getting used to again; after that, the sensation becomes unstoppable. Soon Richard urges for more, Dean is more than happy to comply, and Aidan's breaths come shallow and short in his hair.

They're on an entirely different level of desire when Dean still, inquires him without words and Richard allows, and the digits slip out. There are no 'are you ready's this time, nor any insecurities that should be there, with them being a company. Dean simply moves, and Richard simply receives; and then that formality stops and they both try to get as much of each other as they possibly can.

Richard moves back against him, and Dean bends over him as he thrusts up. A sheen of sweat settles on their skin. When they kiss, it's salt and saliva, and it's insatiable. No matter how much they try to get, it's never enough for either of them. Dean laughs exhilarated, one moment, as if he's never expected it to be this good. And it certainly exceeds any and all of Richard's expectations.

Aidan supports them as good as he can. Richard can feel that no matter how they move, it's not enough for Aidan. And the man can pretend that it's their turn all he wants, he's no saint. It's obvious he wants this badly just as much as they.

Frustratedly, he slips between their frenzied bodies and takes hold of Richard once again. When he moves, it's fast and desperate. It's also utterly uncoordinated; every time he gets Richard's toes curling and his back tense, he does something else that upsets the build-up and lets him fall, right before he picks him up again.

When Aidan starts muttering hot nothings and struggles to hold himself up, because he just can't anymore, Richard finally comes violently. His hands pull Dean in to crash their mouths together, in order to funnel his passion in any way, and he gasps for air whenever they pull apart.

Richard, lost, whimpers Dean pulls out immediately, while he's still riding it out and he needs that, he needs someone in him now. He can't just... The hand that replaces Aidan's, the grip much firmer now, is hardly satisfactory, even if it does the job. But lost in his pleasure, Richard can't find it in himself to ask.

He finally goes slack against Aidan, who presses kisses against his hair with great need, until he tilts his head and kisses him properly, and there's no denying what the message is when his legs urgently wrap around his waist. Richard's hand reaches out for Dean as he kisses Aidan for dear life.

The longer they kiss, the more Aidan needs, and the less Richard feels he can give. At last Dean coaxes, "Let him go, Rich."

And he understands why Dean would pull away.

Richard smiles to himself and moves off him.

Aidan wriggles out of his jeans in no time. The buggers seem like they're tight enough for it. He doesn't bother with his shirt. As soon as he's free, he pushes Dean down flat and crouches over him. Richard has no time to process much of it, because before he knows it, Aidan's lowered himself down on Dean fully, and the sigh that leaves him is pain mixed with utter bliss. He lifts himself up once, and practically falls apart when he slams down.

Richard's mouth is dry as he watches them together. Part of him is still slightly jealous. It's dwindling though; that part of him that thinks it's the most beautiful thing to behold to see Aidan shatter before him and Dean bring him there, it's getting stronger by the minute.

"Oh fuck," Aidan breathes, "Dean. _Fuck_ , Dean!"

He rides him like the devil's chasing him, and it's almost enough, almost good enough, barely, almost...

Richard faintly thinks the scene before him looks familiar. He doesn't grasp why, spent as he is and mesmerised by the sight. It's beautiful and haunting at the same time. Aidan blindly grasps for him. He takes his hand, feels the tight squeeze.

When Aidan finally comes over Dean's chest, wholly untouched and wretched, Dean pulls his hips down and thrusts up into the new constricting tightness. He's not far from them. Aidan bites his lip and whimpers, and they can tell it's starting to be too much from the way he sits hunched over. Richard kisses his shoulder and his hair, and when it is finally too much, Dean comes breathlessly inside him. A groan tears from his lips like a caged animal well after he's spent.

Sated, he falls back on the bed and closes his eyes. There's a stupid smile on Dean's face. On top of him, Aidan doesn't move. His shoulders shake though, and at once Richard remembers why it's familiar.

"Look at me," he tells Aidan.

Aidan doesn't move. It's when Richard tips his chin up that he sees that which he fears is undeniably there. Aidan's eyes are glazed over, tears threatening to form in the corners. Richard's throat constricts at the sight, and Dean too pushes himself up on his elbows when he catches sight, confused.

"What is it?" he asks, hoarse, while his hand reaches out for him.

"I'm sorry," Aidan smiles and rubs at his eyes, embarrassed, "It's nothing. I'm fine." There's no dishonesty in his words.

"Oh, Aid," Richard sighs. He can't bear for him to look so sad, no matter how much he claims he's alright.

From under him, Dean sits up and presses a kiss against his jaw. "What is it?" he asks "Did I...?" Worry etches into the lines around his eyes.

Richard shakes his head and gestures him not to speak. He knows he's probably got Dean wondering why he himself is so calm, but he simply pulls Aidan into a hug, unruly hair tucked under his chin, and whispers, "In over your head again?"

"Apparently there are some who have that effect on me," Aidan smiles against his upper arm. His free hand searches for Dean and holds tight as soon as he has him. He turns his head to look at the blond and wrinkles his nose. "It's stupid, isn't it?"

The worry hasn't left Dean's system yet, but he kisses him anyway. "I think you don't know half how amazing you are."

"Don't I?" he tries to go for cocky and fails before he makes an effort.

"No, you really don't," Richard concurs. Worried as he may be, it still does things to him to see the wince and the way Dean slips out of Aidan, the moment the man carefully gets up and lies down on the bed with stained thighs, slipping through their grasp easily.

"Lie with me?" Aidan asks like he still needs to. He looks frail - small, the face of what just happened.

Richard chuckles and shakes his head. "You should get that cleaned up."

From opposite Aidan, Dean can't keep his eyes away and says without looking, "Tomorrow. We can clean up tomorrow."

Aidan murmurs consent - he looks as if content is seeping back into him, if the small, comfortable smile is anything to go by - and closes his eyes.

In the end Richard gets a wet towel from the bathroom and quietly wipes off the evidence of their union, disregarding any sleepy protests and the way they curl in on each other when the cool cloth touches warm skin.

He pauses when he's done and looks down at the two men in his bed with something akin to dedication. Then he turns off the lights.

It'll not be easy, especially not with these two.

But then the good things never are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was way overdue. Sorry for all the delays. That being said, wow, that was finally it! Fifteen chapters... when the prompt of Thorin manhandling Aidan struck (thanks again, ThornyHedge!), I never expected it to run this long, nor take this course. It's still baffling... How did this happen again?
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me, despite all the feels, and for everyone's wonderful comments. You've continued to make me want to work harder and share a new chapter sooner; don't underestimate yourselves. Half of this story might not have happened without so much cheering on from the sidelines. I love you guys <3


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